A New Jersey resident who is accused of attempting to kill a world-renown author nearly two years ago during a visit to Chautauqua Institution has now been indicted federally.

An indictment unsealed in U.S. District Court in Buffalo on Wednesday charges Hadi Matar with providing material support to a militant group overseas sometime between September 2020 and August 2022.

On Aug. 12, 2022, Salman Rushdie was stabbed a dozen times all over his body, including his right eye, which he no longer can use. Rushdie was to discuss the United States as a place of asylum for writers and other artists in exile and as a home for freedom of creative expression.

According to the indictment, the three charges are: attempt to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, act of terrorism transcending national boundaries, and providing material support to terrorists.

In the indictment, it states, “Between in or about September 2020, the exact date being unknown, and on or about August 12, 2022, in the Western District of New York, and elsewhere, the defendant, Hadi Matar, a citizen of the United States, knowingly did attempt to provide material support and resources … specifically himself, and services, to a designated foreign terrorist organization, namely, Hizballah, knowing that Hizballah was a designated foreign terrorist organization, and had engaged, and was engaging, in terrorist activity.”

Hizballah, sometimes spelled Hezbollah, is an Iran-backed Lebanese Shia militia and U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization.

Earlier this month, before the federal indictments were unsealed, Matar was offered an opportunity to plead guilty to second-degree attempted murder and that guilty plea would include future federal charges. Between the local and federal charges, Matar, now 26 years old, was looking at a maximum sentence of between 30 and 40 years.

He ended up rejecting that offer. Instead, both cases will now proceed to trial separately.

In Chautauqua County, jury selection is set to begin Oct. 15. The trial was originally scheduled to begin Sept. 10, however it was delayed to accommodate Rushdie’s travel schedule.

In 1988, Rushdie’s book “The Satanic Verses” was published. A year later, Iran’s leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa, which included a large financial bounty, calling for the death of Rushdie and the book’s publishers, saying the novel was an insult to Islam.