Salman Rushdie described in the graphic details on Tuesday crazy moments in 2022, when the masked man threw himself at him on the stage in Western New York and cut him many times with a knife, leaving him with terrible injuries and fearing that he would die.
Rushdie took the position of the second day of testimony at the trial of 27 -year -old Hadi Matar, who did not plead guilty for trying to murder and assault in an attack that also hurt another man. For the first time from August 12, 2022, the 77-year-old author found himself in the same room with a man accused of trying to kill him.
Rushdie remembered how “a sense of great pain and shock and awareness of the fact that there was a huge amount of blood in which I lay” after an attack in the institution of chautauqua-centrum of art and non-profit education about 120 kilometers south of Buffalo, where he had present a lecture that day.
“It occurred to me that I was dying. It was my dominant thought, “he said, adding that people who suppressed his attacker probably saved his life.
Talking about the attack, his wife, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, cried in the second row of the courtroom.
“I saw him only at the last minute,” said Rushdie about a man who threw himself on the stage in the institution and stabbed him many times with a 25-inch (10-inch) blade.
“I was aware of someone who is wearing black clothes or dark clothes and a black face mask. I was very hit by his eyes, which were dark and seemed very cruel. “
Rushdie said that at first he thought that his attacker holding a knife was hitting him with his fist.
“But I saw a large amount of blood spilling into my clothes,” he said. “He hit me many times. Hit and cutting. “
Rushdie said that he hit him more times in the chest and torso and stabbed him in his chest as he tried to escape. He was blinded with one eye during the attack.
“I was very seriously injured. I couldn't get up anymore. I fell, “he said.
Current27:02Salman Rushdie in 27 seconds who almost killed him
Weeks of recovery
Rushdie spent 17 days at a hospital in Pennsylvania and over three weeks at the New York Rehabilitation Center, where he had to teach basic skills again, such as squeezing toothpaste from a tube. Last year, he described his months of recovery in his diary in detail.
Although he said that he “regained”, he still does not feel “100 percent”.
“I'm not as energetic as I used to. I'm not as physically strong as I used to, “he said.
Matar, who sat about six meters from Rushdie in the courtroom, often looked in advance during his testimony.
The interrogation begins
Lynn Schaffer, a public defender representing Matara, began interrogation, asking the author's book awards about his career. The question was short, low and friendly for a while. She asked Rushdi if he would be surprised Bridget Jones journalIn which he makes a camera, he was her favorite movie.
“I am surprised,” Rushdie said, joking that it was his “most important work.”
The only clue about the possible defense strategy was the question of whether the trauma can affect memories.
Rushdie admitted that he had a false memory, that he thought he got up when he saw the approaching attacker, but it wasn't true.
Then Schaffer challenged him to remember how many times he was hit.
“I didn't count at that time. I was busy, “Rushdie answered. “But then I saw them on my body. I didn't have to say anyone. “
Nobody asked Rushdie to identify his attacker in court, and he refused to interview when he left the court after about an hour of testimony.
Later, Tuesday, deputy sheriff of the Chautauqua, Jason Beichner identified Matar as a striker who helped to stop behind the scenes after the attack. He testified that Matar was calm and cooperating, while his clothes were disheveled and it seemed that there was blood on his hands.
Safety was much stronger before the appearance of Rushdie, and several vehicles of law enforcement authorities parked in court.
The process is expected to last up to two weeks.
The jurors are unlikely to hear about Fatwa, published by the deceased Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Chomeini calling for Rushdi's death, according to the district prosecutor Jason Schmidt. Rushdie, author Children at midnight AND City of victoryHe spent years hidden after Chomeini announced Fatwa in 1989 after the publication of his novel Satanic verseswho was inspired by the life of the prophet Muhammad and which some Muslims consider blasphemous.
“This is not a case of incorrect identity”
Schmidt said that the discussion of the Matar motif would be unnecessary in the state process, given that the attack was visible by the audience live, which expected to hear Rushdie a lecture on the safety of writers.
“This is not a case of incorrect identity,” said Schmidt during opening statements on Monday. “Mr. Matar is a person who attacked Mr. Rushdi without provocation.”
Matar is a double citizen of a Lebanese American. According to the mayor of the village, he was born in the USA with his parents who emigrated from Yaroun in southern Lebanon near the Israeli border. Matara's mother said that she believed that her son was organized in 2018, when he spent time with her father at Yaroun.
In an interview with New York prison, Matar would not say if he was following Fatva, calling Rushdie as “someone who attacked Islam.”
In a separate indictment, the federal authorities claim that Matar was willing to act by supporting the terrorist organization in 2006. Fatwa. The later trial of federal allegations of terrorism will be planned at the District Court in the USA in Buffalo.