Salman Rushdie Prepares to Confront His Attacker in Court

[Social Media]

 

Sir Salman Rushdie is set to take the stand in the trial of the man accused of attempting to kill him by stabbing him 33 times during a speaking event in upstate New York in August 2022. The trial, beginning on Tuesday, will see the prosecution recount the harrowing attack on one of the most renowned writers of modern times.

 

 

Jason Schmidt, the district attorney leading the case, is an experienced prosecutor known for his sharp courtroom presence. However, no matter how compelling his opening statement may be, it is unlikely to match the account Rushdie himself has already provided in Knife, his bestselling memoir detailing the attack and his subsequent recovery.

 

Rushdie, who was 75 at the time, was preparing to discuss the importance of safe spaces for writers with Henry Reese, the founder of a Pittsburgh-based organization that offers refuge to persecuted authors, when the assailant struck. “I can still see the moment in slow motion,” Rushdie wrote. “In the corner of my right eye — the last thing my right eye would ever see — I saw the man in black running toward me down the right-hand side of the seating area. Black clothes, black face mask. He was coming in hard and low: a squat missile.”

 

The accused, Hadi Matar, 27, from New Jersey, has pleaded not guilty to attempted murder. His attorney, Nathaniel Barone, admitted the difficulty of mounting a defense, given the public nature of the attack. “Almost to a person they are saying, ‘What is this guy’s defense? Everyone saw him do it!’” he told The New Yorker in 2023.

 

According to witnesses, including Rushdie himself, the attack was halted by Reese, who rushed to intervene, and by audience members who subdued Matar until law enforcement arrived. That evening, Matar was detained in the county jail across from the courthouse, while investigators searched his New Jersey residence, where he had lived with his mother and twin sisters.

 

His parents, who emigrated from Lebanon in the 1990s, had divorced in 2004, and his mother, Silvana Fardos, described how Matar had changed after a trip to Lebanon in 2018. “He locked himself in the basement,” she told The Daily Mail days after the attack. He became reclusive, cooking his own meals and living a nocturnal lifestyle. “As I said to the FBI, I’m not going to bother talking to him again. He’s responsible for his actions … All we can do is try to move on from this, without him.”

 

Days after the attack, Matar spoke from jail in an interview with the New York Post. When asked if he had acted on Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwa against Rushdie, he replied, “I respect the Ayatollah, I think he’s a great person. That’s as far as I will say about that.” As for The Satanic Verses, he admitted, “I read a couple of pages. I didn’t read the whole thing cover to cover.” Instead, much of his knowledge of Rushdie came from YouTube. “I don’t think he’s a very good person, I don’t like him,” he said. “I don’t like people who are disingenuous like that.” He added that he attended the event in Chautauqua, New York, after seeing Rushdie’s name listed as a speaker on Twitter. “When I heard he survived, I was surprised, I guess.”

 

In addition to the state charges, Matar was later indicted in federal court for attempting to serve Hezbollah, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, by committing an act of terrorism. He pleaded not guilty.

 

Schmidt, the district attorney, has stated that motive will not be a primary focus in the trial, given the overwhelming evidence and eyewitness accounts. The presentation of testimony and forensic evidence is expected to take about a week, during which both Rushdie and Reese are expected to testify.

 

Rushdie has contemplated what it means to face his attacker. In Knife, he reflected on Samuel Beckett’s experience of confronting his own assailant in court after a near-fatal stabbing in 1938. Beckett had asked his attacker why he had done it, to which the man simply replied, “I don’t know, sir, I’m sorry.” Inspired by this encounter, Rushdie initially believed he, too, would want to look his assailant in the face.

 

However, with time, therapy, and the act of writing his memoir, that urge faded. In the book, he imagines a confrontation in which he dismisses his attacker entirely. “You are revealed here as a would-be assassin and an incompetent one at that,” he envisions himself saying. “Perhaps in the incarcerated decades that stretch out before you, you will learn introspection and come to understand that you did something wrong. But you know what? I don’t care. This, I think, is what I have come to this courtroom to say to you. I don’t care about you, or the ideology that you claim to represent, and which you represent so poorly. I have my life and my work and there are people who love me. I care about those things.”

 

In the coming weeks, Rushdie may have the opportunity to say these words in court, or perhaps, after everything he has endured, he may decide that silence is the most powerful statement of all.

 

Based on a report by The Times 2025-02-06

 

 

[phil2407]

Should only take 10 minutes to convict him not weeks!

[Smokey and the Bandit]

"The accused, Hadi Matar, 27, from New Jersey, has pleaded not guilty to attempted murder. His attorney, Nathaniel Barone, admitted the difficulty of mounting a defense, given the public nature of the attack. “Almost to a person they are saying, ‘What is this guy’s defense? Everyone saw him do it!’” he told The New Yorker in 2023. "

 

He has no defense!!

[Skeptic7]

Should be an eye for an eye...then executed or life in prison, no parole. Case closed. There's no rehabilitating these savages. 

[Watawattana]

3 hours ago, Smokey and the Bandit said:

"The accused, Hadi Matar, 27, from New Jersey, has pleaded not guilty to attempted murder. His attorney, Nathaniel Barone, admitted the difficulty of mounting a defense, given the public nature of the attack. “Almost to a person they are saying, ‘What is this guy’s defense? Everyone saw him do it!’” he told The New Yorker in 2023. "

 

He has no defense!!

Of course, I agree with you.  I just wonder if there's some medical issue that he'll claim, or some other weaselly gimmick that the defence will try.

[Sir Dude]

Islam as a religion is going to drastically change, and brainwashed fools like this guy will get a rude awakening. Why? Well, Islam is going to fundamentally change because of the internet. When you look back in time, what the printing press did to Christianity, the internet will do to Islam. 

Long ago, the Bible was originally in Greek, and St. Jerome translated it into Latin around the end of the 4th century AD, and thus almost no-one could read it unless a scholar or well-educated preist that would spend all of his time trying to decipher the message, then articluate it to the followers in church... which meant that they had control over the narrative and message, people couldn't just read it and decide for themselves, unlike now. The printing press destroyed all that in the 13th-14 century and it was translated by Theologian John Wycliffe (c. 1320s–1384), and mass produced in English taking away the strict control of the message by the Catholic church.

The same goes for the Quran, it's written in Quranic Arabic, which is different to the Arabic of today, so you need clerics or scholars to divine its message as the cleric sees fit, and then pass it on in the sermons on a Friday etc., this is how they assert control over the religion and its followers. The printing press never really affected the Middle East much, but the internet will turn that all on its head, and is doing so. Muslims are in for a rough ride over the next few decades as people will begin to question the text, as has happened to the Bible, and will be dragged kicking and scream into the modern world... which it cannot escape.

[Oliver Holzerfilled]

It should be obvious to anyone with eyes that Rushdie will soon see justice and the accused will be looking at many years in jail.

[Will B Good]

3 minutes ago, Oliver Holzerfilled said:

It should be obvious to anyone with eyes that Rushdie will soon see justice and the accused will be looking at many years in jail.

Can't believe you went there!!!

[Oliver Holzerfilled]

3 minutes ago, Will B Good said:

Can't believe you went there!!!

You missed the other two.  Rushdie will soon "see" justice and the accused will be "looking" at years in jail.

[Will B Good]

3 minutes ago, Oliver Holzerfilled said:

You missed the other two.  Rushdie will soon "see" justice and the accused will be "looking" at years in jail.

 

Damn...should have had my eyes peeled for those.

[Lacessit]

8 minutes ago, Sir Dude said:

Islam as a religion is going to drastically change, and brainwashed fools like this guy will get a rude awakening. Why? Well, Islam is going to fundamentally change because of the internet. When you look back in time, what the printing press did to Christianity, the internet will do to Islam. 

Long ago, the Bible was originally in Greek, and St. Jerome translated it into Latin around the end of the 4th century AD, and thus almost no-one could read it unless a scholar or well-educated preist that would spend all of his time trying to decipher the message, then articluate it to the followers in church... which meant that they had control over the narrative and message, people couldn't just read it and decide for themselves, unlike now. The printing press destroyed all that in the 13th-14 century and it was translated by Theologian John Wycliffe (c. 1320s–1384), and mass produced in English taking away the strict control of the message by the Catholic church.

The same goes for the Quran, it's written in Quranic Arabic, which is different to the Arabic of today, so you need clerics or scholars to divine its message as the cleric sees fit, and then pass it on in the sermons on a Friday etc., this is how they assert control over the religion and its followers. The printing press never really affected the Middle East much, but the internet will turn that all on its head, and is doing so. Muslims are in for a rough ride over the next few decades as people will begin to question the text, as has happened to the Bible, and will be dragged kicking and scream into the modern world... which it cannot escape.

Islam claims to be the last word of Allah to the faithful, and therefore superior to all its predecessors.

 

One of its tenets is the Quran is beyond any questioning by humans. To do so is blasphemy.

 

Like Christianity and Judaism, it has its extremists who think killing unbelievers is the will of Allah.

 

IMO the internet only serves to foment that mindset.

 

Face it, how often on the internet does one see logic and facts howled down by a chorus of charlatans and fruit cakes?

[Will B Good]

2 minutes ago, Lacessit said:

Islam claims to be the last word of Allah to the faithful, and therefore superior to all its predecessors.

 

One of its tenets is the Quran is beyond any questioning by humans. To do so is blasphemy.

 

Like Christianity and Judaism, it has its extremists who think killing unbelievers is the will of Allah.

 

IMO the internet only serves to foment that mindset.

 

Face it, how often on the internet does one see logic and facts howled down by a chorus of charlatans and fruit cakes?

 

Every time I login to AN?