The 77-year-old British-Indian author recalled the “ferocious” expression in Hadi Matar’s eyes as the 27-year-old allegedly started stabbing Rushdie after he stormed a stage in upstate New York in August 2022. Rushdie further stated that he thinks he would have died if other good Samaritans hadn’t pulled Matar down.
Salman Rushdie ‘got very struck’ by aattacker’s eyes
Rushdie told judges, “I only saw him at the last minute,” while his tearful wife, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, used a tissue to wipe her eyes in the Chautauqua County Courthouse gallery, NY POST reported.
The author of “The Satanic Verses” claimed that Matar must have rushed across the stage and up the stairs in a bid to attack him.
During his interview at the Chautauqua Institution in western New York, he recalled someone was donning black or dark clothes and a black face mask.
“I got very struck by his eyes. They were dark and seemed very ferocious to me,” the author remarked, before the judge removed the statement from the court’s official record.
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Salman Rushdie takes off spectacles to reveal his blind eye
Rushdie described in graphic detail the severe wounds he sustained during the brutal attack that took away the eyesight of his one eye.
He removed his spectacles, which had a blackened lens over his ruined right eye, and showed the jury the horrifying injury, which he characterized as “immensely painful.” “You can see that’s what’s left of it — there is no vision in the eye at all,” he added.
Rushdie claimed that he initially believed Matar was striking him with his fists because he had not seen the weapon. However, he soon realised that Matar was stabbing him when he began to scream and felt excruciating pain as blood spurted from his right eye.
According to Rushdie, he was stabbed perhaps fifteen times in total. “Fortunately, it did not damage the heart,” he told the jurors.
Know about Hadi Matar
Matar has entered a not guilty plea in regards to attempted murder and assault.
It is anticipated that the trial will run for up to two weeks and that jurors will be shown images and video from the attack day.
In a jailhouse interview with The Post days after the stabbing, Matar, who was born in America but holds dual citizenship with Lebanon, claimed that he almost murdered Rushdie since the author is “someone who attacked Islam, he attacked their beliefs, the belief systems.”
Rushdie’s contentious book “The Satanic Verses” has angered some Muslim communities with its portrayals of Islam and the Prophet Muhammad.
