Salman Rushdie testified Thursday about the day Hadi Matar stabbed him at Chautauqua Institution. Matar, who has already been convicted of attempted murder, now faces federal terrorism charges.
On the second day of the trial, federal prosecutors presented several exhibits recovered from Matar’s New Jersey apartment that they argue demonstrate his support for Hezbollah. Prosecutors also contend that the Aug. 12, 2022, attack was an attempt to carry out a fatwa issued on Feb. 14, 1989, by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Iran’s then-supreme leader, calling for Rushdie’s death. Khomeini accused Rushdie of blaspheming Islam in his novel “The Satanic Verses.”
Matar has pleaded not guilty to the federal charges. His defense attorneys argue that there is no evidence explicitly connecting him to Iran, Hezbollah or any other terrorist organization.
The fatwa and the attack
Wearing glasses with the right lens shaded to conceal his injured eye, Rushdie was asked to remove them and show the courtroom his right eye, which remains intact but is completely blind.
Rushdie recounted his upbringing in Mumbai, where he was born into a secular Muslim family and later came to identify as an atheist. He also discussed moving to the United Kingdom, where he attended the University of Cambridge and became a fan of the Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, or “Spurs.”
Rushdie was questioned about his novel, “The Satanic Verses,” which was published in 1988 in the United Kingdom and 1989 in the United States. He told attorneys that during this time, the book was well received by general audiences, but he did recall negative responses from some members of the Muslim community — most notably, Khomeini.
“I’m quite sure he never read it,” Rushdie said of the ayatollah, adding that he didn’t consider his book offensive because it depicted a fictional religion. “It was accused of being an attack on Islam, which it was not.”
British authorities offered Rushdie years of protection immediately following Khomeini’s threats. About nine years later, at the U.N. General Assembly, an Iranian representative announced his country was distancing itself from carrying out or supporting the death order.
Rushdie moved to Manhattan in the United States in 2001, and held a green card until becoming a U.S. citizen in 2016.
When asked about his appearance at Chautauqua Institution on August Aug. 2022, Rushdie said he was preparing to be interviewed by Henry Reese, co-founder of City of Asylum, a Pittsburgh nonprofit that provides sanctuary to writers exiled under threat of persecution. The creation of that program was inspired by Rushdie’s International City of Refuge program in the United Kingdom. He said he didn’t travel with security and that he assumed Chautauqua Institution would have taken security precautions.
Rushdie said the interview with Reese never took place because Matar stormed the stage and attacked him before it could begin.
“I didn’t actually see him coming up the steps,” Rushdie said. He described Matar as wearing a “black COVID mask” and dark clothing. He was initially unaware that Matar had a weapon.
“I thought I had been punched very heavily and I thought he had broken my jaw,” Rushdie said.
Rushdie said he had no knowledge of, nor prior communication with, Matar before the 2022 stabbing.
“I was unaware of him until he was basically on top of me, by my side, attacking me,” Rushdie said.
He suffered stab wounds to his torso near his liver and intestines as well as his upper thigh. His left hand was also wounded when he raised it to protect himself. He was stabbed in his right eye, severing the optic nerve. The knife came within one millimeter of his brain.
“I could feel the pain in my eye; I kept asking people, what happened to my eye?” he recalled.
Rushdie said Reese, along with some audience members, held Matar down to subdue him. Retired firefighter Mark Perez placed his thumb over a stab wound in Rushdie’s neck to slow the bleeding. Rushdie was airlifted to Hamot Hospital in Erie, Pennsylvania and lost consciousness after the helicopter landed.
Rushdie’s right lung needed to be drained, and his right eyelid was stitched shut. Nerves in the left hand he used to protect himself had been severed, leaving it temporarily paralyzed.
Rushdie detailed his road to recovery. He relied on a ventilator to assist with his breathing and spent days in a hospital bed before he could walk. He also worked to regain use of his left hand and learned that his right eye would never regain sight.
“I had to learn how to redo things that we all take for granted,” he said.
He was discharged to a rehabilitation facility after nearly a month. He had released the novel “Victory City” in 2023, but said he could not go on a book tour because of health and security concerns. Rushdie said he voluntarily stopped driving after losing sight in his right eye.
When cross-examined by defense attorney Nathaniel Barone about tensions within the religious community surrounding “The Satanic Verses,” Rushdie said some members of the Muslim community considered dream sequences in the novel to be blasphemous. When asked how, Rushdie replied, “You’d have to ask them.”
Barone noted that Rushdie’s novel includes a prophet named Mahound — a derogatory term historically used for the Prophet Muhammad — whose wife, Aisha, shares a name with one of Muhammad’s wives.
“I don’t believe the book to be on trial here. I believe somebody else is on trial,” Rushdie told the defense attorney.
At Barone’s request, the judge struck the remark from the court record.
Evidence recovered from Matar’s apartment
Lt. Christopher Whiting, who oversees intelligence and counterterrorism for the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office in New Jersey, was called to outline evidence recovered during the execution of a search warrant on Aug. 13, 2022, one day after the stabbing.
Federal agents searched a basement apartment at 417 Morningside Avenue in Fairview, New Jersey, where Matar had been living. Prosecutors showed images of the small apartment, which contained a passport belonging to Matar, several knives, knife-sharpening equipment and photographs of Khomeini and his successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on a wall next to a bed. A photograph of Samir Quntar, a Hezbollah commander whom the group recognized as a martyr after he was killed in a 2015 Israeli airstrike, was also displayed on the wall.
Agents also found several Post-it notes and notebooks containing information about Rushdie’s whereabouts, including the British pub where he watched Spurs matches and locations associated with him in Manhattan. Prosecutors also showed the jurors several handwritten “pros and cons” lists that they said appeared to concern plans to kill Rushdie.
The “pros” entries included:
“[H]e is old can die any day now so now or never!!”
“We need to kill him ASAP!”
“Brave thing”
“Not abandon Jihad”
“Finally get this over with”
“Closer to paradise”
The “cons” entries included:
“Could wait for better opportunity later”
“Could make life worse (but I doubt that it kind of sucks already)”
“All scenarios have problems or chance of getting caught”
Defense attorneys argue that the notes did not mention Hezbollah, include dates or contain a signature or other marking identifying Matar as the author. Whiting said that, at the time of the search, no other residents of the property were questioned and there was no determination of whether anyone else lived in the basement apartment with Matar.
Alleged links to Hezbollah
Prosecutors showed an image of a fake New Jersey driver’s license that appeared to have Matar’s image and the name Hassan Mughniya. Witness Matthew Levitt, director of the Washington Institute’s Jeanette and Eli Reinhard Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence, said the names appeared to be derived from Hezbollah’s longtime secretary-general, Hassan Nasrallah, and Imad Mughniyeh, the group’s former military operations chief.
The date of birth on the license was listed as Sept. 12, 1997. Levitt identified that date as the day Sayyid Hadi Nasrallah — the 18-year-old son of Hezbollah's longtime leader, Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah — was killed in combat.
Levitt said the May 25, 2022, issue date appeared to reference Lebanon’s Liberation Day, which commemorates the May 25, 2000, Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon.
Prosecutors also showed images of a man wearing a yellow-and-green T-shirt bearing the Hezbollah logo and posing in front of a mirror with a cellphone obscuring his face. In the images, the man extended his left arm in what a witness Levitt described as a common Hezbollah military salute.
Seven witnesses remain, and testimony is scheduled to resume Friday, July 24.
