Prosecutors are set on Monday to present their case against Hadi Matar, who allegedly surveyed the venue before launching a violent attack on author Salman Rushdie, leaving him blind in one eye, AFP reports.
Matar, a 27-year-old of Lebanese-American descent, is facing charges of attempted murder and assault for the August 12, 2022, stabbing of Rushdie at a literary event in western New York.
Authorities accuse him of stabbing Rushdie approximately 10 times, causing severe injuries and robbing the author of sight in his right eye.
Since 1989, Rushdie has been the target of an Iranian fatwa (religious edict) calling for his murder for allegedly blaspheming Islam and its prophet Mohammed in his book "The Satanic Verses."
In 2012, an Iranian foundation added another $500,000 to the reward for killing Rushdie, raising the total bounty for his death to $3.3 million.
Rushdie spent a decade in hiding after Iran's spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issued the 1989 fatwa against him for his book.
Although Iran's foreign ministry in 1998 assured Britain that Iran would do nothing to implement the fatwa, current supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in January 2005 reaffirmed that Rushdie was considered an apostate whose murder was authorized under Islam.
Matar said after the stabbing he didn’t think the author would survive and would not specify if he was inspired by the fatwa calling for Rushdie’s death.
While Matar has pleaded not guilty to attempted murder, he also faces a separate federal trial on terrorism-related charges, having been charged last July of supporting Hezbollah.
The indictment said Matar attempted to provide "material support and resources" to Hezbollah, knowing it was a terrorist organization, but did not detail what evidence connected him to the group.