![\"hadi\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1784847194_119_.png\")
\n Hadi Matar walks in to the Chautauqua County court Adrian Kraus \/ AP<\/p>\n
FOUR YEARS AFTER being stabbed on an amphitheatre stage, Salman Rushdie sat across a courtroom from his convicted attacker and told jurors for a second time about the ambush that nearly killed him.<\/p>\n
The prize-winning author recalled feeling what he thought was a punch under his chin, not realising at first that he was being stabbed.<\/p>\n
Then \u201cI was on the stage, lying down, with an enormous pool of blood all around me\u201d, Rushdie testified.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was an enormous and expansive lake of blood.\u201d<\/p>\n
A Buffalo federal court jury watched Rushdie fixedly as he testified \u2013 and at one point removed his glasses to show his unseeing right eye \u2013 at Hadi Matar\u2019s terrorism trial.<\/p>\n
He has pleaded not guilty.<\/p>\n
Matar already was convicted of a state-level attempted murder charge in the 2022 attack at a cultural institution where Rushdie was poised to speak about threats to writers and artists.<\/p>\n
Federal prosecutors claim Matar was acting on such a threat \u2013 an Iranian leader\u2019s 1989 call for Rushdie\u2019s death because of his novel The Satanic Verses.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t say what his ambitions or his aim was, but the wounds were dispersed across my body,\u201d Rushdie testified.<\/p>\n
Rushdie (79) was composed and straightforward during little more than an hour on the witness stand.<\/p>\n
He outlined the attack \u2013 which blinded him in one eye, damaged his liver and severed nerves in his arm \u2013 and his lengthy work to relearn daily tasks afterwards.<\/p>\n
He described the stabbing and recovery previously during Matar\u2019s earlier trial, in a memoir and in interviews with media outlets.<\/p>\n
Matar (28) looked down at the defence table as Rushdie began testifying.<\/p>\n
\n Hadi Matar walks in to the Chautauqua County court Adrian Kraus \/ AP<\/p>\n
Adrian Kraus \/ AP \/ AP\n<\/p>\n
Matar at times rested his hand on his chin and sometimes turned to speak to his lawyer, but not toward the witness stand, though the defendant did watch the author walk out a door. Rushdie glanced at Matar fleetingly, if at all.<\/p>\n
Matar\u2019s lawyers have argued that prosecutors cannot prove his intent or mindset at the time of the attack \u2013 a key element in their claim that it was an act of terrorism motivated by allegiance to Iran\u2019s government and the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group.<\/p>\n
When Matar\u2019s lawyer asked whether Rushdie believed the defendant had ties to terrorism, the author replied: \u201cI had no knowledge, but I had my suspicions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Matar faces charges that include engaging in an act of transnational terrorism. Currently serving a 25-year state prison sentence, he faces a potential life sentence if convicted in the federal case.<\/p>\n
Iran\u2019s late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued the 1989 fatwa, or religious edict, calling for Rushdie to be killed over The Satanic Verses, which includes a dream sequence about Islam\u2019s Prophet Mohammed that some Muslims considered blasphemous.<\/p>\n
The novel sparked often-violent protests against Rushdie, who was born into a Muslim family, and the fatwa drove him into hiding for years.<\/p>\n
Defence lawyers asked Rushdie whether he had anticipated blowback from the book.<\/p>\n
\u201cProbably, but I don\u2019t believe the book to be on trial here. I believe someone else is on trial,\u201d Rushdie said.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors say Matar was animated partly by comments that a former Hezbollah leader, the late Hassan Nasrallah, made about Rushdie and the fatwa in 2006.<\/p>\n
The US-born Matar also holds citizenship in Lebanon, where Hezbollah is based, and Matar\u2019s mother has said a 2018 trip there left him moody and withdrawn.<\/p>\n
Matar started researching Rushdie in 2020 and eventually wrote to himself, \u201cWe need to kill him ASAP\u201d, Assistant US Attorney Timothy Lynch said in an opening statement on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
He said Matar cast the killing as part of what he considered a jihad, or holy war.<\/p>\n
Matar\u2019s New Jersey bedroom and electronics held photos and other material showing his regard for Hezbollah, and he carried a fake driver\u2019s licence with a name similar to that of a Hezbollah figure, said Lynch.<\/p>\n
The US government designates Hezbollah as a terrorist organisation.<\/p>\n
Matar declined to testify at his state court trial but may do so at the federal trial, his lawyer said outside court.<\/p>\n
Rushdie was born in India, raised in Britain and is now a US citizen. He won the Booker Prize in 1981 for his novel Midnight\u2019s Children.<\/p>\n
His most recent work is The Eleventh Hour, a book of short stories and novellas published last year.<\/p>\n
Iran\u2019s government denied involvement in the 2022 stabbing, but its Foreign Ministry\u2019s then-spokesperson suggested Rushdie invited trouble by insulting Islam.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FOUR YEARS AFTER being stabbed on an amphitheatre stage, Salman Rushdie sat across a courtroom from his convicted…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":564997,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[238628,93,238629,238630,90179,61,11829,60,238631,238632,238633],"class_list":["post-564996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-ayatollah-ruhollah-khomeini","tag-entertainment","tag-fatwa","tag-hadi-matar","tag-hezbollah","tag-ie","tag-iran","tag-ireland","tag-ruhollah-khomeini","tag-salman-rushie","tag-the-satanic-verses"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=564996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564996\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/564997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=564996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=564996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=564996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}