BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — A person who severely injured creator Salman Rushdie in a frenzied knife assault in western New York faces a brand new cost that he supported a terrorist group.

An indictment unsealed in U.S. District Courtroom in Buffalo on Wednesday costs Hadi Matar with offering materials help to Hezbollah, a militant group primarily based in Lebanon and backed by Iran. The indictment didn’t element what proof linked Matar to the group.

The federal cost comes after Matar earlier this month rejected a suggestion by state prosecutors to advocate a shorter jail sentence if he agreed to plead responsible in Chautauqua County Courtroom, the place he’s charged with tried homicide and assault. The settlement additionally would have required him to plead responsible to a federal terrorism-related cost, which hadn’t been filed but on the time.

As an alternative, each instances will now proceed to trial individually. Jury choice within the state case is about for Oct. 15.

Matar’s lawyer, Nathaniel Barone, didn’t instantly return a cellphone message searching for remark.

Matar, 26, has been held with out bail because the 2022 assault, throughout which he stabbed Rushdie greater than a dozen occasions because the acclaimed author was onstage about to provide a lecture on the Chautauqua Establishment. Knife wounds blinded Rushdie in a single eye. The occasion moderator, Henry Reese, was additionally wounded.

Rushdie detailed the assault and his lengthy and painful restoration in a memoir printed in April.

The creator spent years in hiding after the Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran issued a fatwa, or edict, in 1989 calling for Rushdie’s demise over his novel “The Satanic Verses.” Khomeini thought-about the ebook blasphemous. Rushdie reemerged into the general public the late Nineteen Nineties.

Matar was born within the U.S. however holds twin citizenship in Lebanon, the place his dad and mom had been born. He lived in New Jersey previous to the assault. His mom has mentioned that her son turned withdrawn and moody after he visited his father in Lebanon in 2018.

The assault raised questions on whether or not Rushdie had gotten correct safety safety, given that he’s nonetheless the topic of demise threats. A state police trooper and county sheriff’s deputy had been assigned to the lecture. In 1991, a Japanese translator of “The Satanic Verses” was stabbed to demise. An Italian translator survived a knife assault the identical 12 months. In 1993, the ebook’s Norwegian writer was shot 3 times however survived.

The investigation into Rushdie’s stabbing centered partly on whether or not Matar had been appearing alone or in live performance with militant or non secular teams.