Salman Rushdie tells jurors he thought he was dying after harrowing knife attack as he faces stabbing suspect in court Hadi Matar, 27, is on trial for the attempted murder of Salman Rushdie in August 2022.
District Attorney Jason Schmidt told the jury that Matar approached the stage and, “without hesitation upon reaching Mr Rushdie, this man very deliberately, forcefully and efficiently with speed plunged the knife into Mr Rushdie over and over and over and over again.”.
Matar came “dangerously close to committing murder,” Schmidt told the court, explaining that Rushdie “lay on the ground bleeding out” and “had been stabbed straight through the right eye, severing the optic nerve.”.
The author’s testimony comes a day after the trial began with opening statements, during which the court heard how Rushdie was stabbed repeatedly in a frenzied 2022 assault by an attacker who came “dangerously close to committing murder.”.
On August 12, 2022, Rushdie was stabbed more than a dozen times in a frenzied knife attack in front of a lecture audience at Chautauqua Institution Amphitheater, which left him blind in one eye.
