finding defendant was acting under direction of Hezbollah
From Judge Richard Arcara (W.D.N.Y.) yesterday in U.S. v. Matar:
After a jury trial the defendant Hadi Matar was found guilty on each count of a three-count indictment. Count 1 charged Matar with attempting to supply material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization (“FTO”)—namely Hizballah—in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2339B(a)(1). Count 2 charged Matar with committing an act of terrorism crossing national borders, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2332b(a)(1)(A). Count 3 charged Matar with providing material support to terrorists, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2339A. The charges stemmed from his stabbing of the author Salman Rushdie at the Chautauqua Institution on August 12, 2022 ….
Matar sought a judgment of acquittal, but the court denied the motion. The following excerpt discusses why the jury could reasonably conclude that Matar acted under the direction of a foreign terrorist organization (as required by the governing federal statute) rather than acting independently—because if he had acted on his own, the conduct might still constitute attempted murder under state law, but would likely fall short of these federal offenses:
As charged in Count 1, [18 U.S.C. § 2339B] makes it a crime to attempt to provide “material support or resources,” including “personnel” and “services,” to a designated foreign terrorist organization. Matar argues that Count 1 should be “set aside because the Government did not prove that Defendant provided material support to Hizballah under the controlling rule announced in United States v. Ullah [2d Cir. 2026].” According to Matar, the “controlling issue” is “whether the alleged ‘personnel’ and ‘services’ were legally provided to Hizballah at all.”
Specifically, relying on the Second Circuit’s recent ruling in Ullah, Matar contends that although he was inspired by, aligned with, and intended to aid an FTO—much like Ullah—such evidence was “not enough” to establish that he acted under the organization’s direction and control (the “personnel prong”) or in coordination with or at the direction of (the “services prong”)—the FTO ….
Considering all the evidence presented at trial, a properly instructed jury found beyond a reasonable doubt that Matar attempted to provide himself, as “personnel,” and his actions, as a “service,” to Hizballah…. [T]he jury, after considering the trial record, reasonably determined that the evidence was sufficient to show: (1) that Matar, by repeatedly stabbing and attempting to murder Rushdie, supplied personnel and services to Hizballah; and (2) that at the time he committed these acts, Matar acted at Hizballah’s direction, by attempting to fulfill the fatwa—which originated with Ayatollah Khomeini, was later endorsed in 2006 by Hassan Nasrallah, then-head of Hizballah, and again in 2017 by Ayatollah Khamenei—calling for Rushdie’s death. This Court sees no reason to disturb that conclusion.
{During the trial, the Government introduced expert testimony from Dr. Matthew Levitt, who established, among other things, that Hizballah serves as a proxy for the Iranian government. Levitt further testified that Nasrallah’s 2006 speech endorsing the Khomeini fatwa regarding Rushdie, broadcast on Al Manar, Hizballah’s satellite TV network, amounted to a “call to action.” As noted earlier, Matar included the video of Nasrallah’s 2006 remarks in several videos he produced before attacking Rushdie.} …
To prove that Matar attempted to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization by presenting himself as “personnel,” the Government must show that Matar “attempted … to operate under [the] foreign terrorist organization’s direction or control or to organize, manage, supervise, or otherwise direct the organization’s operations.” In other words, “individuals who act entirely independently of the foreign terrorist organization to advance its goals or objectives shall not be regarded as acting under its direction and control.” …
The Government’s trial evidence reasonably established that by attacking Rushdie as he did, Matar was seeking to execute a very specific directive issued by the Ayatollah Khomeini and endorsed by Hizballah. Unlike the ISIS video Ullah watched, which “urged supporters to commit attacks against America,” the defendant aimed to do exactly what the fatwa against Rushdie commanded and sought to kill a particular individual for a particular reason. Cf. Ullah (“The videos that [Ullah] watched that were issued by ISIS did not ‘order’ or ‘command’ him to do anything under any common understanding of those terms. Nor did they provide ‘guidance or supervision of action, conduct, or operation’—since they were silent on specifics.”).
Indeed, to the extent that Matar himself created promotional videos that included Hizballah Secretary General Nasrallah’s endorsement of the very specific fatwa calling for Rushdie’s death, a reasonable jury could conclude that Matar’s later actions in stabbing and attempting to kill Rushdie were undertaken at Nasrallah’s direction and command, and that Matar’s conduct reflected his effort to comply with such directive, command, and order.
The Court in Ullah also explained that working “under” an FTO’s “direction” means that the FTO’s “direction” or “control” must cause a defendant to experience restriction, constraint, or control. Here, the jury could reasonably have found that Hizballah’s fatwa against Rushdie was the sole reason Matar acted as he did.
Indeed, during trial, the government presented evidence that Matar rejected a suggestion from Kaymar in Iran [someone with whom Matar had online conversations] to consider killing another prominent American because “Rushdie has the longer fatwa” while the other person “doesn’t have a fatwa.” In other words, the jury could reasonably have found that Matar’s conduct was dictated, directed, and controlled exclusively by the existence of the FTO-endorsed fatwa.
Matar’s own words and actions suggest that his motive was to follow what he understood Nasrallah’s endorsement of the fatwa required him to do.
Furthermore, a rational jury could also have found that Nasrallah’s speech supplied “direction” because it concluded by praising martyrdom. Dr. Levitt explained that martyrdom is a central element of Hizballah’s ability to recruit and retain followers. The jury confronted abundant evidence showing Matar expected that fulfilling the fatwa would turn him into a Hizballah martyr. In that regard, the trial record showed that: (1) at the time of the attack, Matar possessed a counterfeit driver’s license featuring references to several Hizballah martyrs, including Imad Mughniyah; (2) on the morning of the August attack, he visited a Hizballah-run site and saved screenshots of two martyrs who died in August; (3) his phone’s lock screen depicted another Hizballah martyr, Samir Kuntar; (4) a photo of Hizballah’s first martyr, Ahmed Kassir, hung on his bedroom wall; and (5) weeks before the attack he sent his last will to the Imam of his religious center and another Imam two days before the event.
For all of these reasons, the Court concludes that the Government’s trial evidence was sufficient for a rational jury to find that Nasrallah’s 2006 speech directed Hizballah’s supporters to carry out Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwa on Rushdie and that Matar, in attempting to execute that fatwa on Hizballah’s behalf, acted “under” Hizballah’s direction. The fatwa, which is said to have constrained, restricted, or controlled him, led Matar to target Rushdie alone.
The fatwa and directive that Matar received, and that he pursued, was not a vague exhortation. Unlike the ISIS video in Ullah—which merely urged unspecified acts—the Nasrallah-endorsed fatwa directed the killing of a named individual for a specific reason, constraining Matar in the exact manner required by Ullah….
The Court rejects Matar’s argument that the evidence is insufficient because the government did not show Hizballah knew about Matar or his plan beforehand, did not communicate with him about the attack (or that the people he spoke with were Hizballah members), that Matar reported to or sought approval from Hizballah, or that Hizballah exercised any constraint over his actions. The law does not demand such proof.
As Ullah noted, “[w]e do not hold that the ‘personnel’ prong applies only to ‘foreign fighters’ who travel abroad or submit to operational command structures.” The Court also acknowledged that “[w]e do not hold that the statute excludes certain types of directions, or directions conveyed through certain means like YouTube.” Instead, focusing on the content, we simply hold that the online videos in Ullah do not constitute “directions” or evidence that the Defendant acted “under” ISIS’s direction. Here, by contrast, the Defendant sought to carry out precisely what Hizballah’s fatwa directed, toward the intended target, for the specified reason….
Timothy C. Lynch and Charles M. Kruly represent the government.
