Salman Rushdie described in graphic detail on Tuesday the frantic moments in 2022 when a masked man rushed to him on a stage in the west of New York and cut him several times with a knife, leaving him with deadly injuries .
The 77 -year -old author spoke to the jurors on the second day of testimony during the Hadi Matar, 27 -year -old trial, who pleaded not guilty of attempted murder and assault in the attack. It was the first time since the attack that Rushdie was in the same room with the man accused of having tried to kill him.
“I only saw it at the last minute,” said Rushdie. “I was aware of someone wearing black clothes, or dark clothes and a black facial mask. I was very struck by his eyes, which was dark and seemed very ferocious.”
Rushdie said he first thought that his striker eating knives struck him with a fist.
“But I saw a large amount of blood run over my clothes,” he said. “He hit me several times. Strong and cut.”
Rushdie said he had been struck in his chest and chest and stabbed his chest more in his chest when he was fighting to run away.
“I was very seriously injured. I couldn’t get up. I fell,” he said.
‘I was dying’
While lying on stage, he recalled “a feeling of great pain and shock, and aware of the fact that there was a huge amount of blood in which I was lying down”.
“It came to my mind that I was dying. It was my predominant thought,” he said.
His wife, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, shouted his headquarters in the second row of the courtroom.
Rushdie was blinded with an eye in the attack and spent months recovering, a process that he detailed in a memory published last year. A speaker who was to appear with Rushdie was also injured.
The jurors heard opening declarations on Monday, followed by the testimonies of staff members of the Chaattaqua Institution, the Center for Art and Non -Lucrative Education where the attack occurred approximately 120 kilometers south from Buffalo.
Matar has been in detention since he was mastered by the spectators after the attack.
The trial is expected to last up to two weeks.
The jurors are unlikely to intend to speak of a fatwa published by the late Iranian leader in Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini calling for the death of Rushdie, according to the district prosecutor Jason Schmidt. Rushdie, the author of Midnight children And Victory Cityspent years hiding after Khomeini announced the Fatwa in 1989 after the novel’s publication Satanic verseswhich was inspired by the life of the Prophet Muhammad and that some Muslims consider the blasphemous.
‘Not a case of erroneous identity’
Schmidt said that the discussion on Matar’s reason will not be necessary in the state trial, given that the attack was seen by a live audience which expected to hear Rushdie presenting a conference on the security of the security of Writers.
“This is not an erroneous case,” said Schmidt during the opening declarations on Monday. “Mr. Matar is the person who attacked Mr. Rushdie without provocation.”
A public defender representing Matar told the jurors that the case was not as simple as the prosecutors had been.
“The elements of the crime are more than” something really bad happened “- they are more defined,” said Lynn Schaffer. “Something bad happened, something very bad has happened, but the district prosecutor must prove much more than that.”
In a separate accusation act, the federal authorities allege that Matar was pushed to act by the approval by a terrorist organization in 2006 of the Fatwa. A subsequent trial on federal accusations on terrorism will be provided for the US District Court of Buffalo.
