Mayville, New York – The trial for Hadi Matar, accused of violently stabbing author Salman Rushdie in a 2022 attack, where Rushdie was left permanently blind in one eye, has commenced. The trial started with opening statements delivered by lawyers representing both Rushdie and Matar at the Chautauqua County Courthouse in Mayville, NY.
Matar, a 27-year-old from Fairview, New Jersey, has pleaded not guilty to charges of attempted murder and assault. The trial, which was postponed last year to allow Matar’s public defender time to read Rushdie’s memoir “Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder,” focuses on the violent attack and Rushdie’s journey of recovery.
In August 2022, Rushdie was speaking at the Chautauqua Institution in western New York when he was brutally stabbed by Matar on stage. The attack not only resulted in Rushdie losing sight in one eye but also left him with little sensation in two fingers on his left hand.
Following the attack, Matar was swiftly arrested. Two years later, federal authorities accused Matar of having ties with Hezbollah, a Lebanon-based militant group backed by Iran and designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S.
A separate federal indictment alleges that Matar provided support to Hezbollah to carry out a fatwa issued by Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989, calling for Rushdie’s assassination in response to his novel “The Satanic Verses,” viewed as blasphemous.
Rushdie, who spent years in hiding due to the threat of the fatwa, detailed his near-death experience in his memoir “Knife.” In an interview about the book, he recounted the moment of the attack and his thoughts during the harrowing incident.
The ongoing trial encompasses both the murder and assault charges against Matar, as well as the terrorism-related federal charges. If found guilty of terrorism offenses alone, Matar could potentially face life imprisonment, as per the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Western District of New York.