Salman Rushdie said in court to think he was dying after being stabbed on stage two years ago, leaving him blind in one eye.
The well-known author of the British and Indian has issued evidence at the trial of his alleged striker, 27-year-old Hadi Matar, who declared that he was not guilty of charges of attack and attempted murder.
The Proceedings of the State Court in New York are several kilometers from where Sir Salman was attacked on August 12, 2022, while he was supposed to talk about how they were now refuge for exiled writers.
The attack occurred after Sar Salman spent years hiding for threatening his life after his novel Satanic verses were published in 1988.
Warning: This story contains disturbing details
Prosecutors, who did not list the motive for the sting, invited Salman Salman to the booth on Tuesday morning, asking him to recall the moments before and after the attack.
The 77-year-old said the jury said he was sitting on stage on the stage ready to address the audience at the prestigious Chautauqua institution.
Shortly after Sar Salman was introduced, he said he noticed a person who rushed toward him on the right.
He described the attacker as if wearing dark clothing and a face mask, and said he was hit by an individual’s eyes, “which were dark and looked very frantic.”
Sir Salman said he felt the first blow to his right jaw and his neck, and at first he thought he was hit. Then he saw blood pouring into his clothes.
“At that moment, he repeatedly hit me, sting and cutting,” the author said, adding that the incident was taking place in a few seconds.
Sar Salman told court that a total of 15 times, wound in the eyes, cheek, neck, chest, torso and thigh.
The left hand was also stab when he tried to defend himself.
His knife wound on his eye was the hardest, he said.
At one point, he took off his glasses, which hid his dark lens to the right eye to detect the scope of the injury.
“As you can see, that’s what’s left of that,” the jury said. “There is no sight at all.”
While Sar Salman, who wore a dark suit, gave his testimony, Mr. Matar often lowered his head and the two never looked like eye contact.
Sir Salman’s wife, Lady Rushdie, cried from her place in the second row as her husband recounted the incident.
He worried about his safety from the publication of Satanic verses, his surrealist, post -modern novel that was inspired by the life of the Muslim prophet Muhammad.
While he met with recognition and awards in the Western world, many Muslims considered that he was blasphemous and some countries forbade him. The Iranian religious leader issued Fatwa calling for the author’s death for the book.
That Fatwa – a religious decree – made Sir Salman face the countless threats of death. He was forced to hide for nine years and began to travel only when Iran said he would not implement the law.
Two weeks before the attack, the author told the German magazine to live a “relatively normal” life because threats had decreased.
But the attack on Salman’s cheese in Chautauqua, New York, broke that sense of security.
On Tuesday, the writer told the court that in moments after that it “quite clearly occurred to die – it was my prevailing thought.”
He also described the feeling like lying in the “blood lake”.
He recalled that passers -by, including the audience members, conquered the attacker.
“And thanks to that, I survived,” Sir Salman said.
The jury author said he was transferred to the Trauma Center, where he treated his injuries for 17 days.
Mr. Matar was arrested at the scene.
The suspect’s lawyer, Lynn Schaffer, was crossed by Sir Salman and asked him if he could believe his memory of the events with regard to the trauma he had endured.
The author replied that Trauma could change people’s memory, but he added that he was sure he had been wounded 15 times.
“I could see afterwards [the wounds] On my body, “he said.” No one should have said me. “
Asked if he had ever had any contact with the suspect before the attack, Sir Salman replied that he did not. He also said the attacker told him anything.
More witnesses are expected to be invited to the booth in the coming days, including a surgeon who acted on cheese Salman, as well as officials for the implementation of the laws that responded to the attack.
