Salman Rushdie took the stand on Tuesday morning in the trial of the man accused of trying to kill him and revealed how he believed he was about to die just after the harrowing knife attack.
The celebrated Indian-born British-American author has faced death threats since his 1988 novel The Satanic Verses was declared blasphemous by Iran’s supreme leader. On August 12, 2022, he was stabbed more than a dozen times in a frenzied knife attack, in front of a lecture audience at Chautauqua Institution Amphitheater, an assault that left him blind in one eye.
“I became aware of a great quantity of blood I was lying in,” he told the court, recalling lying on the stage. “My sense of time was quite cloudy, I was in pain from my eye and hand, and it occurred to me quite clearly I was dying.”
For the first time in two years, Rushdie, now 77, faced his alleged stabber in a New York courtroom. Hadi Matar, 27, from New Jersey, has pleaded not guilty to charges of attempted murder and assault. Matar intently scribbled on a yellow legal pad at the defense table while Rushdie avoided looking in his direction as he described how the attack unfolded.
“I was aware of this person rushing at me from my right hand side. I was aware of someone in dark clothes … I was struck by his eyes which seemed dark and ferocious to me,” he testified. “He hit me very hard around my jawline and neck. Initially I thought he’d punched me with his fist, but very soon afterwards I saw blood on my clothes.”
“Everything happened very quickly. I was stabbed repeatedly, and most painfully in my eye. I struggled to get away. I held up my hand in self-defense and was stabbed through that.”
When he was asked how many times he was stabbed, Rushdie answered: “I wasn’t keeping score.”
The author’s testimony comes a day after the trial began with opening statements, during which the court heard how Rushdie was stabbed repeatedly in a frenzied 2022 assault by an attacker who came “dangerously close to committing murder.”
District Attorney Jason Schmidt told the jury that Matar approached the stage and, “without hesitation upon reaching Mr Rushdie, this man very deliberately, forcefully and efficiently with speed plunged the knife into Mr Rushdie over and over and over and over again.”
Rushdie was stabbed in the neck, stomach, chest, hand, and right eye, leaving him partially blind and with permanent damage to one hand.
Matar came “dangerously close to committing murder,” Schmidt told the court, explaining that Rushdie “lay on the ground bleeding out” and “had been stabbed straight through the right eye, severing the optic nerve.”
Schmidt said that Matar “almost succeeded in killing Mr Rushdie” and that during the trial, they would use Matar’s “own words” to help prove his intent beyond reasonable doubt.
Assistant public defender Lynn Schaffer told the jury in her opening statement that prosecutors couldn’t prove Matar’s guilt, even with videos and photos. She said the case is not as straightforward as the prosecution portrayed.
Two witnesses testified on Monday, including Chautauqua Institute former Director of Education Jordan Steves, who attempted to disrupt the attack by tackling the assailant.
The trial is expected to last a week to 10 days. Matar faces up to 25 years in prison if convicted.
