Salman Rushdie describes 2022 attack in graphic detail on witness stand
MAYVILLE, N.Y. - Salman Rushdie took the witness stand Tuesday in the attempted murder trial against his accused attacker, Hadi Matar.
Rushdie described in graphic detail the injuries that nearly took his life in the 2022 attack, and how he still lives with chronic pain.
It was the first time Matar, 27, and Rushdie were in the same room together since the brutal attack.
On the witness stand, Rushdie described being attacked moment before he was scheduled to address a lecture audience in Western New York.
Rushdie recounts details of the attack
Rushdie identified Matar as his attacker. Matar, who was seated about 20 feet away from Rushdie in the courtroom, often looked down during his testimony.
"I only saw him at the last minute," Rushdie said of the man who rushed across the stage at the Chautauqua Institution and stabbed him repeatedly with a 10-inch blade.
"I was aware of someone wearing black clothes, or dark clothes and a black face mask. I was very struck by his eyes, which were dark and seemed very ferocious."
As he recounted the attack, his wife, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, cried from her seat in the courtroom's second row.
Rushdie said he first thought his knife-wielding attacker was striking him with a fist.
"Initially I thought he had punched me. I thought it was a fist, he was hitting me with his fists. Very soon I saw a large quantity of blood that poured onto my clothes. He was hitting me repeatedly, hitting and slashing," Rushdie testified.
Prosecutors said Matar stabbed Rushdie more than a dozen times, plunging the knife into his neck, thigh, hand and eye.
"Most painfully and dangerously was the stab wound to the right eye which left me blind. You can see... there is no vision at all," Rushdie testified. "It occurred to me quite clearly I was dying and that was my predominant thought."
Rushdie said he was struck again in his chest and torso and stabbed in his chest as he struggled to get away.
"I was very badly injured. I couldn't stand up any more. I fell down," he said.
Rushdie told the jury he had to learn to walk again after significant blood loss caused systemic weakness in his body. He testified he spent 17 days in the hospital and underwent months of rehab, and still doesn't have full function of one of his hands.
Rushdie acknowledges false memory of attack
Lynn Schaffer, a public defender representing Matar, began the cross examination by asking the Booker Prize-winning author about his career. The questioning was brief, low-key and for a moment friendly. She asked Rushdie if he would be surprised that 'Bridget Jones's Diary," in which he makes a cameo, was her favorite movie.
"I am surprised," Rushdie said, joking that it was his "most important work."
On cross examination, defense attorneys tried to poke holes in Rushdie's memory of events. Rushdie agreed trauma has a way of affecting how things are remembered.
He testified that he and Matar had no contact prior to the attack.
"I think I'm not quite at 100%. I think I've substantially recovered but it's probably 75 to 80%," Rushdie testified. "I'm not as energetic as I used to be. I'm not as physically strong as I used to be."
Rushdie and his wife left court without speaking to reporters.
The trial is expected to last up to two weeks.
Motive may not come up at trial
Jurors are unlikely to hear about a fatwa issued by the late Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini calling for Rushdie's death, according to District Attorney Jason Schmidt. Rushdie, the author of "Midnight's Children" and "Victory City," spent years in hiding after Khomeini announced the fatwa in 1989 following publication of the novel "The Satanic Verses," which some Muslims consider blasphemous
Schmidt has said discussing Matar's motive will be unnecessary in the state trial, given the attack was seen by a live audience that was expecting to hear Rushdie present a lecture on keeping writers safe.
"This is not a case of mistaken identity," Schmidt said during opening statements Monday. "Mr. Matar is the person who attacked Mr. Rushdie without provocation."
Schaffer, the defense lawyer, told jurors that the case is not as straightforward as prosecutors have made it out to be.
"The elements of the crime are more than `something really bad happened' — they're more defined," Schaffer said. "Something bad did happen, something very bad did happen, but the district attorney has to prove much more than that."
In a separate indictment, federal authorities allege Matar was driven to act by a terrorist organization's 2006 endorsement of the fatwa. A later trial on federal terrorism charges will be scheduled in U.S. District Court in Buffalo.
