Prosecutor says Salman Rushdie was too stunned to react when a man started to stab him
Entertainment
Steves, one of two witnesses to testify Monday, identified Matar as the assailant.
MAYVILLE, N.Y. (AP) — Salman Rushdie was so stunned when a masked man started to stab him on a stage in western New York that the author didn’t even try to fight back, a prosecutor said Monday during opening statements in the suspect’s attempted murder trial.
Rushdie, 77, is expected to testify during the trial of Hadi Matar, bringing the two face-to-face for the first time since the attack that left Rushdie seriously wounded and blind in one eye.
On the day of the attack in August 2022, the Booker Prize-winning novelist was seated in an armchair on stage at the Chautauqua Institution Amphitheater, about to present a lecture on keeping writers safe.
District Attorney Jason Schmidt told jurors Monday that the attack was swift and sudden. He said Matar bounded up a staircase to the stage and ran about 30 feet (9 meters) toward Rushdie. As the stabbing began, Rushdie and fellow speaker Henry Reese were so stunned that they initially remained seated.
“Without hesitation this man holding his knife … forcefully and efficiently in its speed, plunged the knife into Mr. Rushdie over and over and over and over again,” Schmidt said, “stabbing, swinging, slicing into Mr. Rushdie’s head, his throat, his abdomen, his thigh” and a hand the author raised to protect himself.
“It all happened so fast that even the person under attack, Mr. Rushdie, and the person sitting next to him, Mr. Reese, didn’t register what was happening,” Schmidt said.
Rushdie eventually got up and ran away with Matar in pursuit and other people subdued the attacker, Schmidt said. Reese, co-founder of City of Asylum in Pittsburgh, suffered a gash above his eye.
A Chautauqua Institution employee testified that he rushed from backstage to intervene when he saw a man was on stage violently swinging his arms at Rushdie.
“I ran as fast as I could, lowered my shoulder and got as much of him with as much of me as a I could to disrupt what was happening,” said Jordan Steves, who was the media relations coordinator.
Steves, one of two witnesses to testify Monday, identified Matar as the assailant.
Matar, 27, of Fairview, New Jersey, is charged with attempted murder and assault. He has pleaded not guilty. He calmly said “Free Palestine” as he was led into the court Monday. During Schmidt’s opening statement, Matar looked on from the defense table, occasionally taking notes, and smiling and laughing while speaking with his attorneys.
“This is not a case of mistaken identity,” Schmidt said. “Mr. Matar is the person who attacked Mr. Rushdie without provocation.”
Rushdie, an Indian-born British-American author, detailed the attack and his long, painful recovery in a memoir, “Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder,” released last year.
Rushdie had worried for his safety since his 1989 novel “The Satanic Verses” was denounced as blasphemous by many Muslims and led to Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issuing a fatwa calling for his death. Rushdie spent years in hiding, but had traveled freely over the past quarter century after Iran announced it would not enforce the edict.
