Salman Rushdie peeled back a patch covering his damaged right eye, exposing to jurors the gruesome consequences of a 2022 stabbing attack in western New York, as he testified Tuesday against the New Jersey man accused of trying to kill him.
Rushdie was getting ready to give a lecture as part of an event held at the Chautauqua Institution, a nonprofit center near Lake Erie, when the violence occurred on Aug. 12, 2022.
Police said Hadi Matar, now 27, rushed the stage before the “Satanic Verses” author could speak, then stabbed him more than a dozen times with a 10-inch blade.
“I was aware of someone wearing black clothes, or dark clothes and a black face mask,” Rushdie testified on Tuesday. “I was struck by his eyes which seemed dark and ferocious to me.”
The 77-year-old writer said he only spotted Matar at “the last minute,” and was then immediately overcome with “a sense of great pain and shock.” He said he thought he’d been “punched” until he became “aware of the fact that there was an enormous quantity of blood” he was lying in after the attack.
“It occurred to me that I was dying,” Rushdie told the court. “That was my predominant thought.”
In wake of the stabbing, Rushdie was temporarily placed on a ventilator. He spent 17 days at a Pennsylvania hospital and more than three weeks at a New York City rehabilitation center, where he had to relearn many basic skills. He said he’s still “not quite at 100%,” telling jurors that he’s currently functioning at 75-80%.
The renowned author also showed off the worst of his wounds, the one to his right eye, from which he can no longer see.
“You can see that’s what’s left of it — there is no vision in the eye at all,” he said.
Matar was quickly detained on the scene by New York State troopers working the event. He later pleaded not guilty to a count of second-degree attempted murder and one of second-degree assault brought by the Chautauqua County district attorney. The latter charge is for the wounding of Henry Reese, the co-founder of Pittsburgh’s City of Asylum, who was also injured in the chaos.
Rushdie — the author of 14 novels, four works of nonfiction and a collection of short stories — is perhaps best known for penning “The Satanic Verses.” The piece was dubbed blasphemous by many Muslims and has been banned in Iran since 1988.
The following year, the nation’s late leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa, or edict, calling for Rushdie’s death. He spent years in hiding as a result.
Jurors tasked with determining Matar’s fate will likely not hear about the fatwa, despite it allegedly being his motivation for the attack. District Attorney Jason Schmidt has argued that they don’t need to understand the attacker’s motive because the assault was witnessed and recorded by a live audience.
If convicted, Matar faces up to 25 years for attempted murder, seven years for assault and potentially life in prison on a federal terrorism charge, for which he will be tried separately.