{"id":708167,"date":"2026-07-24T03:19:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T03:19:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/708167\/"},"modified":"2026-07-24T03:19:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T03:19:09","slug":"salman-rushdie-testifies-at-terrorism-trial-of-man-convicted-of-stabbing-him-salman-rushdie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/708167\/","title":{"rendered":"Salman Rushdie testifies at terrorism trial of man convicted of stabbing him | Salman Rushdie"},"content":{"rendered":"

Four years after being stabbed on an amphitheater stage, Salman Rushdie<\/a> on Thursday 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 writer recalled feeling what he thought was a punch under his chin, then feeling blood coming from his neck.<\/p>\n

Soon, he said, \u201cI was on the stage, lying down, with an enormous pool of blood all around me,\u201d Rushdie testified. \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 now-sightless right eye \u2013 at Hadi Matar\u2019s terrorism trial. Matar has pleaded not guilty.<\/p>\n

Matar was already 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. Federal prosecutors say Matar was acting on such a threat: 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 just more than an hour on the witness stand. He outlined the attack \u2013 which blinded him in the right eye, damaged his liver, paralyzed his left hand for a time and briefly put him on a ventilator \u2013 and his lengthy recuperation and enduring injuries.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe knife was a millimeter from my brain,\u201d said Rushdie, whose attacker had climbed on stage, approached from behind him and then slashed the author 15 times as the Chautauqua Institution audience gasped. Spectators and another speaker, Henry Reese, scrambled to aid Rushdie and restrain Matar, who was arrested by law enforcement officers assigned to the event. Rushdie had described the stabbing and recovery previously during Matar\u2019s earlier trial, in a memoir and in interviews with the Associated Press and other outlets.<\/p>\n

As Rushdie testified, Matar, 28, looked down at the defense table, sometimes rested his hand on his chin or turned to speak to his lawyer, looking toward the author only as Rushdie walked out a door. The writer glanced at Matar fleetingly, if at all.<\/p>\n

Matar\u2019s defense has argued that prosecutors can\u2019t 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. Matar, currently serving a 25-year state prison sentence, faces a potential life sentence if convicted of federal charges that include engaging in an act of transnational terrorism.<\/p>\n

When defense lawyer Nathaniel Barone 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

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 Muhammad that some Muslims considered blasphemous. The novel sparked often-violent protests against Rushdie, who was born into a Muslim family, and the fatwa drove him into hiding for years. He gradually emerged after the Iranian government distanced itself from the order in 1998, though the fatwa was never officially repealed.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor two decades or more, I led a public life without a hint of trouble,\u201d Rushdie testified on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Barone repeatedly 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. At Barone\u2019s request, the judge struck the comment from the court transcript.<\/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. 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 said assistant US attorney Timothy Lynch in an opening statement on Wednesday. Matar cast the killing as part of what he considered a jihad, or holy war, Lynch said.<\/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 license with a name similar to that of a Hezbollah figure, said Lynch. The US government designates Hezbollah as a terrorist organization.<\/p>\n

Matar\u2019s lawyer has said the government is asking jurors \u201cto connect the dots\u201d in a case without hard evidence about what he was thinking on the date of the attack. In a seeming effort to scrutinize how much the fatwa was on anyone\u2019s mind by 12 August 2022, the defense also has asked some witnesses about the relatively light security around Rushdie that day. A state trooper and a sheriff\u2019s deputy were assigned to the event.<\/p>\n

Matar declined to testify at his state court trial but may do so at the federal trial, Barone said outside court on Thursday.<\/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. 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. Hezbollah\u2019s Nasrallah did not comment on the attack.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Four years after being stabbed on an amphitheater stage, Salman Rushdie on Thursday sat across a courtroom from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":708168,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[96,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-708167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=708167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708167\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/708168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=708167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=708167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=708167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}