Rushdie recounts near-fatal stabbing in trial of suspect

Author thought he was 'dying' in frenzied attack at lecture

- ANDREA CAVALLIER

Salman Rushdie took the stand yesterday 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 then supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

On 12 August 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, Mr 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. Mr Matar intently scribbled on a yellow legal pad at the defence table while Mr 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 afterward I saw blood on my clothes."