The man accused of stabbing British author Salman Rushdie in 2022 in New York now faces a new charge of supporting the Hezbollah terrorist group, the BBC reported on Wednesday, citing a newly unsealed indictment.
The stabber, Hadi Matar, has been charged with providing material support to Hezbollah in the new indictment.
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.
The federal charges come weeks after Matar rejected an offer from prosecutors that would have sentenced him to prison for a shorter period of time if he pleaded guilty.
He is also charged with attempted murder and assault for the 2022 attack which left Rushdie blind in one eye.
Matar's lawyer, Nathaniel Barone, told the BBC his client plans to plead not guilty to the new charges.
Matar previously pleaded not guilty and is being held without bail.
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.