BUFFALO, New York — The man who was convicted of trying to kill Salman Rushdie will stand trial again, this time in a federal terrorism case that is further investigating what allegedly motivated the stabbing on a conference stage in 2022.

Opening statements are scheduled for Wednesday in Hadi Matar’s trial in federal court in Buffalo, New York. It is about 70 miles (113 km) from the artistic and intellectual retreat where the renowned author and free speech advocate was attacked as he was about to speak about the safety of writers.

Booker Prize winner Rushdie, now 79, is expected to be among the first witnesses and will again describe the stabbing that nearly killed him and left him blind in one eye. He has recounted the moment and his long recovery in his testimony at the attempted murder trial in Matar state court, in his memoirs, and in multiple interviews.

“What happens when you look really closely at death — it’s the closest you can get without doing the dance of death and going nowhere — stays with you,” he told The Associated Press in 2024. “There’s a shadow.”

Matar, 28, is already serving a 25-year prison sentence in New York state for a statewide conviction for attempted murder and assault. That case focused primarily on the details of the knife attack itself; the federal delves deeper into questions of motive.

Matar has pleaded not guilty to federal charges that include participating in an act of transnational terrorism. If convicted, he faces a possible life sentence.

Prosecutors have argued that he was acting out of loyalty to Iran’s theocratic government and the Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah, after the Islamic Republic’s late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini called for Rushdie’s death over his 1988 novel “The Satanic Verses.”

Matar’s electronic devices included information about the fatwa, or Islamic religious rule, seeking Rushdie’s death, and Matar kept a diary and sticky notes recording his investigation of Rushdie and possible ways and places to kill him, prosecutors said in a court filing from 2025. In Matar’s bedroom in New Jersey, federal agents found photographs of Khomeini and his now-deceased successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, according to the document.

“When he attempted to carry out the fatwa, he believed he was doing so on behalf of” Hezbollah, which the U.S. government designates as a terrorist organization, deputy prosecutors Timothy Lynch and Charles Kruly wrote in the document.

When asked about the case Tuesday, Matar’s attorney, Nathaniel Barone, said he planned to give an opening statement. In the years before the trial, Matar’s lawyers tried unsuccessfully to exclude some evidence from his social media accounts and other digital activities, arguing that the government’s electronic searches cast too wide a net.

Matar declined to testify at his state court trial and it is unclear whether he will take the stand in federal court. At his sentencing in state court, Matar said he believed in free speech but claimed Rushdie was “a hypocrite” who “wants to intimidate other people.”

Matar also spoke spontaneously in support of the Palestinians as he walked in and out of the state courtroom.

Born in the United States to parents who emigrated from Lebanon, Matar is a citizen of both countries. His mother has said he became moody and withdrawn after a 2018 trip to Lebanon, where Hezbollah is based.

Rushdie was born in India, raised in Britain (where he was knighted by the late Queen Elizabeth II), and is now a US citizen. He won the Booker Prize in 1981 for “Midnight’s Children,” a magical realist novel about a personal and national journey that begins the instant India became independent.

But Rushdie became most famous and notorious for “The Satanic Verses,” particularly a passage featuring a sequence of dreams about the Prophet Muhammad. Some Muslims saw it as blasphemy and protests, often violent, broke out against Rushdie, who was born into a Muslim family.

Khomeini’s 1989 fatwa sent Rushdie into hiding for years. Although Iran has not focused on the decree in recent years, it was never rescinded. Iran’s government denied involvement in the 2022 stabbing, but its then-foreign ministry spokesman suggested Rushdie caused trouble by insulting Islam.

After “Knife,” Rushdie’s memoir of the stabbing, he returned to fiction with last year’s “The Eleventh Hour,” a book of short stories and novellas. He was recognized with the Dayton Literary Peace Award for lifetime achievement in November.

___

Peltz reported from New York.