Salman Rushdie tells stabbing trial: ‘It found me clear that I was dying’ | Salman Rushdie

Salman Rushdie took the position of the trial against the man accused of trying to kill him at a literary collection in western New York in August 2022, and described the shocking attack more than 35 years after he was first placed under A death management of Iranian religious leaders.

Rushdie, 77, testifies to the prosecution against Hadi Matar, 27, the man accused of assaulting him with a knife when he was tackling an outdoor audience on a theme about shelter and home.

The meeting of Judge David Foley’s courtroom brought Rushdie and Matar together for the first time since, says prosecutors Matar fell a bag containing various knives as he approached the stage at the Chautauqua institution Amphitheatre and stabbed the author more than a dozen times with a 10in knife.

When he spoke with a clear voice, Rushdie described how he was sitting in a chair on the stage, turning with co-speaker Henry Reece and the audience when “this assault began”.

“I was aware of this person who rushed me from me from my right side. I was aware of someone in dark clothes … I was hit by his eyes, which seemed dark and violent to me. “

Rushdie added: “He hit me very hard around my jaw and neck. For starters, I thought he had struck me with the fist, but very soon after I saw blood on my clothes. “

He continued: “Everything happened very quickly. I was stabbed repeatedly and most painfully in my eye. I fought to get away. I held my hand up in self -defense and was stabbed through it. “

When asked how many times he was stabbed, Rushdie said, “I didn’t keep score.”

Rushdie described to rise from his seat to get away from his striker but fell. “He tried to beat me as many times as possible.

“I was very badly injured and I couldn’t get up anymore,” Rushdie testified, believing he had been hit 15 times by his attack.

“I screamed because of the pain,” he said, describing the wound on his right eye looking at that side. Rushdie showed jurist’s jury the empty pedestal under an eye patch he is now wearing.

While lying on stage, Rushdie continued: “I became aware of a large amount of blood I was in. My feeling of time was quite cloudy, I was in pain from my eye and hand and it happened to me quite clearly I was at to die. “

Rushdie described how he was put on a gurney and later the wheel of an emergency medical helicopter. “I was slightly aware of what was going on until the helicopter landed, then I can’t remember anything until much later.”

Rushdie was hospitalized for more than two weeks and described how he, while on a fan, communicated by wiggling his feet.

Matar, a double American-Lebanese citizen, is accused of attempted murder and assault. He has not pleaded guilty. Matar mumbled: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” when he was brought into court. Rushdie’s wife, Rachel Griffiths, and his agent, Andrew Wylie, sat in the gallery flanked by security.

In the opening of statements, jurist had heard from prosecutors that Matar “almost succeeded in killing Mr. Rushdie”.

“Without hesitation, this man threw his knife … strongly and effectively in its speed, the knife in Mr Rushdie again and again and again and again,” said prosecutor Jason Schmidt.

Assistant public defender Lynn Schaffer told jurist that prosecutors would not be able to prove Matar’s fault, even with the help of video footage and photos.

“The elements of the crime are more than” something really bad happened ” – they are more defined,” Shafter said. “Something bad happened, something very bad happened, but the district attorney has to prove much more than that.”

A series of witnesses were called Monday by prosecutors who want to place Matar on the crime scene. Chautauqua -employee Jordan Steves said he saw a “violent interaction with someone swinging their arms on a guest on stage …”

Absent in the case so far is any reference to the Fatwa that called for Rushdie’s death, which was Matar’s motivation, according to an interview he gave after his arrest. Prosecutors say they can secure a conviction without reference to it.

Matar is ready to be tried on federal terror prosecutor where the issue of motivation will be difficult to exclude. The charges that Matar was motivated by an endorsement of Fatwa by the Iran-backed group Hezbollah. On Monday, Matar said “free Palestine” when he entered the courtroom.

A later trial of the federal charges – terrorism that transcends national borders that provide material support to terrorists and try to provide material support for a terrorist organization – will be planned in the US district law of Buffalo.

In an account published last year, Knife: Meditations after a murder attempt, Rushdie told how he had a prerequisite in a dream of being attacked in an amphitheater.

The trial will last up to two weeks, the lawyers said.