Attempted murder trial begins for accused Salman Rushdie attacker
Author was shocked by 2022 attack and couldn't react at first, prosecutor says in opening statements
Salman Rushdie was so stunned when a masked man started to stab him on a stage in western New York that the acclaimed author didn't even try to fight back, a prosecutor said Monday during opening statements in the suspected attacker's attempted murder trial.
Rushdie, 77, is expected to testify during the trial of Hadi Matar in a Chautauqua County court in Mayville, N.Y., 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 author 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 the attack was swift and sudden. He said Matar bounded up a staircase to the stage and ran about 30 feet 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 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, a Pittsburgh-based nonprofit organization that helps writers exiled from their countries for their controversial writing, suffered a gash above his eye.
"This is not a case of mistaken identity," Schmidt said. "Mr. Matar is the person who attacked Mr. Rushdie without provocation."
Witness identifies Matar as assailant
The former director of education for the Chautauqua Institution testified Monday that on the day of the attack, 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 co-ordinator for the Chautauqua Institution at the time.
Steves, one of two witnesses to testify Monday, identified Matar as the assailant.
The trial's first witness was a Chautauqua Institution administrator who said she was handed the knife by an institution reverend when she rushed toward the stage.
Deborah Moore Kushmaul said she immediately gave the knife to a law enforcement officer following the attack.
Matar, wearing a blue dress shirt, looked on from the defence table, occasionally taking notes, and smiling and laughing while speaking with his attorneys. The 27-year-old, a resident of Fairview, N.J., has pleaded not guilty to charges of attempted murder and assault.
Author feared for life after fatwa
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, a novel inspired by the life of the prophet Muhammad, which utilized magical realism and received praise from literary critics, 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 travelled freely over the past quarter century after Iran announced it would not enforce the decree.
The trial is taking place as the 36th anniversary of the fatwa — Feb. 14, 1989 — approaches.
Matar's defence faced a challenging start after it was announced that his lawyer, Nathaniel Barone, was hospitalized with an undisclosed illness and would not attend the start of the trial.
Judge David Foley refused a defence request to postpone opening statements, instead instructing one of Barone's associates to deliver the defence's opening statement in his place.
Defence addresses court
Assistant public defender Lynn Schaffer told jurors that prosecutors would be unable to prove Matar's guilt, even using video recordings and photos. She said the case is not as straightforward as the prosecution portrayed.
"The elements of the crime are more than 'something really bad happened' — they're more defined," Shaffer said. "Something bad did happen, something very bad did happen, but the district attorney has to prove much more than that."
She acknowledged that nearly all the jurors admitted during jury selection that they had heard something about the case.
"No matter what you knew coming in here, none of that information ever told you why," she said.
The trial will last up to two weeks, the lawyers said.
Matar told investigators he travelled by bus to Chautauqua, about 120 kilometres south of Buffalo. He is believed to have slept on the grounds of the arts and academic retreat the night before the attack.
Federal authorities allege terrorism connection
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 has been one of the world's most celebrated authors since the 1981 publication of Midnight's Children, winner of the Booker Prize. His other works include the novels Shame and Victory City, which he had completed shortly before the 2022 stabbing, and the 2012 memoir Joseph Anton, in which he wrote about his time in hiding.
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.