A man has been convicted of federal terrorism charges for the 2022 stabbing of author Salman Rushdie, who has lived under a decades-old death threat stemming from his novel "The Satanic Verses."

A jury on Wednesday found Hadi Matar guilty of all charges, including engaging in an act of transnational terrorism.

Matar, 28, is already serving a 25-year New York state prison sentence for an attempted murder conviction related to the August 2022 attack on an amphitheater stage.

The federal conviction now carries a potential life sentence. A message seeking comment was sent to Matar’s attorneys following the verdict.

Rushdie, who was about to deliver a speech on writers’ safety, was gravely wounded in the assault, suffering 15 stab wounds in front of a stunned audience.

He ultimately lost sight in his right eye.

Prosecutors argued that Matar was motivated by the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s 1989 call for Rushdie’s death due to "The Satanic Verses."

Defense lawyer Nathaniel Barone countered that the government lacked proof of Matar’s internal motivations.

Matar himself declined to testify, though Rushdie did, telling jurors, "I can’t say what his ambitions or his aim was, but the wounds were dispersed across my body."

"The Satanic Verses," a novel of magical realism published in 1988, drew critical acclaim in the United Kingdom but sparked widespread protests across the Muslim world.

Some believers viewed certain passages, particularly a dream sequence, as blasphemous toward Islam’s Prophet Muhammad.

Over the years, the controversy led to at least 45 deaths in riots, the fatal stabbing of a Japanese translator, an attack on an Italian translator who survived, and a shooting targeting the book’s Norwegian publisher.

Rushdie, born into a Muslim family, maintained that the dream sequence was merely fiction.

He went into hiding for years, gradually re-emerging after Iran’s government appeared to distance itself from Khomeini’s fatwa, or religious edict, in 1998.

"For two decades or more, I led a public life without a hint of trouble," Rushdie testified at the trial in Buffalo, New York.

However, the fatwa was never officially rescinded, with Khomeini’s successor, the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, indicating in 2017 that it remained in effect. An Iranian foundation has offered a bounty exceeding $3 million for Rushdie’s killing.

Prosecutors presented evidence that Matar repeatedly discussed the fatwa with contacts in messaging apps between 2021 and 2022.

These messages showed Matar expressing anger that he felt Rushdie had attacked Islam and, by surviving, had emboldened others to insult the faith.

Matar alluded to a 2006 comment along these lines by the late Hezbollah militant group leader Hassan Nasrallah. Born in the U.S., Matar also holds Lebanese citizenship, the country where Hezbollah is based.

Prosecutors stated that photos found in Matar’s New Jersey bedroom and on his computer indicated his support for Hezbollah, which the U.S. has designated a terrorist organization.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Timothy Lynch stated in an opening statement on July 22 that Matar aimed to fulfill the fatwa and "wanted everyone to know he was doing this for Hezbollah."

The messages revealed Matar initially spoke of wanting to "expose" Rushdie before escalating to wanting to "take his life."

In a private note, he wrote: "We need to kill him ASAP," according to Lynch, who added that Matar framed the planned killing as part of what he considered a jihad, or holy war.

By spring 2022, electronic chats showed Matar had identified Rushdie’s residence and was tracking his public appearances, eventually pinpointing his scheduled August 2022 talk at the Chautauqua Institution, a western New York arts and intellectual center.

As Rushdie was being introduced, his attacker climbed onto the stage behind him, then stabbed him 15 times as the audience gasped. Spectators and another speaker, Henry Reese, scrambled to aid Rushdie. Law enforcement officers assigned to the event arrested Matar after civilians helped restrain him.

Rushdie published a 2024 memoir about the attack and returned to fiction with last year’s "The Eleventh Hour."

The author, who was knighted by Britain’s late Queen Elizabeth II, received a Dayton Literary Peace Prize lifetime achievement award in November.