Salman Rushdie described in graphic detail Tuesday the frenzied moments in 2022 when a masked man rushed at him on a stage in western New York and repeatedly slashed him with a knife, leaving him with life-threatening injuries. The 77-year-old author addressed jurors on the second day of testimony at the trial of Hadi Matar, 27, who has pleaded not guilty to attempted murder and assault in the attack, per the AP. It was the first time since the attack that Rushdie found himself in the same room with the man accused of trying the kill him.
- "I only saw him at the last minute," Rushdie said. "I was aware of someone wearing black clothes, or dark clothes and a black face mask. I was very struck by his eyes, which were dark and seemed very ferocious."
- Rushdie said he first thought his knife-wielding attacker was striking him with a fist. "But I saw a large quantity of blood pouring onto my clothes," he said. "He was hitting me repeatedly. Hitting and slashing."
- Rushdie said he was struck more times in his chest and torso and stabbed in his chest as he struggled to get away. "I was very badly injured. I couldn't stand up anymore. I fell down," he said.
- While lying on the stage, he recalled "a sense of great pain and shock, and (was) aware of the fact that there was an enormous quantity of blood that I was lying in."
- "It occurred to me that I was dying," he said. "That was my predominant thought."
His wife, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, cried from her seat in the courtroom's second row. Rushdie was blinded in one eye in the attack and spent months recovering, a process he detailed in a memoir released last year.
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