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Rushdie, 77, is expected to testify during the trial of Hadi
Matar, bringing the writer face-to-face with his knife-wielding
attacker for the first time in more than two years.
Rushdie, who wrote “Midnight’s Children” and “Victory City,” had
been about to speak about keeping writers safe from harm in
August 2022 when Matar ran toward him on the stage at the
Chautauqua Institution Amphitheater. Matar stabbed Rushdie more
than a dozen times in the neck, stomach, chest, hand and right
eye, leaving him partially blind and with permanent damage to
one hand.
The Indian-born British-American author detailed the attack and
his long, painful recovery in a memoir, “Knife: Meditations
After and Attempted Murder,” released last year.
Matar, 27, of Fairview, New Jersey, is charged with attempted
murder and assault. He has pleaded not guilty. A jury was
selected last week. Matar was in court throughout the three-day
process, taking notes and consulting with his attorneys.
Once testimony is underway, the trial is expected to last a week
to 10 days. Jurors will be shown video and photos from the day
of the attack, which ended when onlookers rushed Matar and held
him until police arrived. The event’s moderator, Henry Reese,
co-founder of City of Asylum in Pittsburgh, was also wounded.
Matar told investigators he traveled by bus to Chautauqua, about
75 miles (120 kilometers) south of Buffalo. He is believed to
have slept in the grounds of the arts and academic retreat the
night before the attack.
Matar's attorney has not indicated what his defense will be.
In a separate indictment, federal authorities allege Matar was
motivated by a terrorist organization’s endorsement of a fatwa,
or edict, calling for Rushdie’s death. A later trial on the
federal charges — terrorism transcending national boundaries,
providing material support to terrorists and attempting to
provide material support to a terrorist organization — will be
scheduled in U.S. District Court in Buffalo.
Rushdie spent years in hiding after the late Iranian leader
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued the fatwa in 1989 over the
Rushdie novel, “The Satanic Verses,” which some Muslims consider
blasphemous.
In the federal indictment, authorities allege Matar believed the
edict was backed by the Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah
and endorsed in a 2006 speech by the group’s then-leader, Hassan
Nasrallah.
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