Prosecutor says Salman Rushdie was too stunned to react when a man started to stab him

MAYVILLE, N.Y. (AP) — 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 attacker’s attempted murder trial.

Rushdie, 77, is expected to testify during the trial of Hadi Matar, bringing the two face-to-face for the first time since the attack that left Rushdie seriously wounded and blind in one eye.

Rushdie, the Booker Prize-winning author, had been about to present a lecture on keeping writers safe in August 2022 when Matar ran toward him on the stage at the Chautauqua Institution Amphitheater.

District Attorney Jason Schmidt described a swift and sudden attack by Matar, who bounded up a small staircase and onto the stage as the speaking program got underway.

So stunned were Rushdie and fellow speaker Henry Reese that they initially remained seated in armchairs as the stabbing began.

“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.

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“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.

Matar, wearing a blue dress shirt, looked on from the defense table, occasionally taking notes.

Matar’s lawyer was set to address jurors later in the morning.

The 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” 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 traveled 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, 27, of Fairview, New Jersey, is charged with attempted murder and assault. He has pleaded not guilty. He calmly said “Free Palestine” as he was led into the court Monday.

“This is not a case of mistaken identity,” Schmidt said. “Mr. Matar is the person who attacked Mr. Rushdie without provocation.”

Matar’s defense 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 defense request to postpone opening statements, instead instructing an associate of Barone to deliver the defense’s opening statement in his place.

Once testimony is underway, the trial is expected to last a week to 10 days. Jurors will be shown video and photos from the day of the attack, which ended when onlookers rushed Matar and held him until police arrived. The event’s moderator, Henry Reese, co-founder of City of Asylum in Pittsburgh, was also wounded.

Matar told investigators he traveled by bus to Chautauqua, about 75 miles (120 kilometers) south of Buffalo. He is believed to have slept in the grounds of the arts and academic retreat the night before the attack.

Matar’s attorney has not indicated what his defense will be.

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.

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Associated Press national writer Hillel Italie in New York City contributed to this report.