Salman Rushdie testifies in trial of man accused of attempting to assassinate him

Sir Salman Rushdie has testified in the trial of Hadi Matar, a 27-year-old accused of trying to assassinate him in a multiple-stabbing attack at a northwest New York stage in August 2022.

The alleged incident took place at the main amphitheatre of the Chautauqua Institution, in New York, where Rushdie was set to give an open-air lecture.

The Indian-born British-American author was stabbed multiple times and blinded in one eye in the incident, according to a 2024 memoir Rushdie wrote about the attack: Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder.

Matar was charged with attempted murder and assault. He has pleaded not guilty at the trial, which began yesterday at Judge David Foley's courtroom.

After taking the stand, Rushdie, who is 77 years old, stated that he was sitting in a chair on the stage, facing co-speaker Henry Reese and the audience, when "this assault began," The Guardian has reported from Chautauqua County Courthouse.

"I was aware of this person rushing at me from my right-hand side," Rushdie began describing. "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-defence and was stabbed through that," he added.

"He was trying to strike me as many times as possible," Rushdie said as he described how he tried to get up from his seat but fell down. "I was very badly injured and I couldn’t stand up any more." Rushdie estimated having been struck 50 times by his assailant.

"I was screaming because of the pain," he said. He then proceeded to take off his eye-patch and show the jurors the hollow where his right eye used to be.

Rushdie has been under a death warrant since late supreme leader of Iran Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa ordering the author's death following the publication of his novel The Satanic Verses, considered blasphemous by some for its perceived insults to prophet Muhammad.

According to the prosecutors, Matar "almost succeeded in killing Mr Rushdie," as he stabbed the author more than a dozen times with a 10-inch knife he held in his right hand, while with his left he had dropped a bag containing different knives as he moved towards the stage.

Matar's defence, who has moved to delay the trial after Matar’s lead public lawyer, Nathaniel Barone, was taken ill, has told jurors the prosecutors will not be able to prove Matar's guilt.

"The elements of the crime are more than ‘something really bad happened’ – they’re more defined," said assistant public defender Lynn Schaffer. "Something bad did happen, something very bad did happen, but the district attorney has to prove much more than that."

There has been no reference made to the fatwa calling for Rushdie's death so far. Prosecutors have stated they can obtain a conviction without addressing it.

In a The New York Post jailhouse interview, Matar did not clarify whether the fatwa had been his inspiration, as he had been warned not to do so by his defence attorney. "I respect the ayatollah," he said. "I think he’s a great person. That’s as far as I will say about that." He also noted having only "read like two pages" of Rushdie’s novel.

There is a separate indictment charging Matar of federal terrorism, in which US authorities allege terrorist group Hezbollah's 2006 endorsement of the fatwa is what motivated Matar. The trial for this indictment will be scheduled in US district court in Buffalo.