Hadi Matar, right, charged with severely injuring author Salman Rushdie in a 2022 knife attack, speaks to his defense team in Chautauqua County court in Mayville, N.Y., Monday, Feb. 10, 2025.
Salman Rushdie was so stunned when a masked man started to stab him on a stage in western New York in 2022 that the acclaimed author didn't even try to fight back, a prosecutor said Monday during opening statements in the accused attacker's attempted murder trial.The trial of Hadi Matar, the man charged with attempted murder and assault in the stabbing of author Salman Rushdie in 2022, began Monday in a Mayville, N.Y., court.
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. Rushdie poses for a portrait to promote his book Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder, at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin on May 16, 2024.
"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.In this courtroom sketch, Jordan Steves, right, the Chautauqua Institute's former director of education, testifies how he attempted to disrupt the attack on Salman Rushdie, as Judge David Foley presides on the bench in Mayville, N.Y., on Monday.
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.
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