Jurors see video showing man stabbing Salman Rushdie as onlookers gasp in horror

Jurors have watched videos showing Sir Salman Rushdie being repeatedly stabbed on a stage in western New York while audience members gasped in horror at the attack that left the prize-winning British novelist seriously wounded and blinded in one eye.

It was the first time chaotic footage of the assault has been played during the trial of Hadi Matar, 27, who is charged with attempted murder.

The video recorded by the Chautauqua Institution’s house cameras on August 12 2022 shows fleeting views of Sir Salman’s assailant, dressed in black and wearing a black face mask, as he quickly strikes the author over and over before being tackled by bystanders and pinned to the stage.

Four videos, each shot from different angles, show only glimpses of the severely injured Sir Salman, who fell to the stage near the attacker.

“Medic! Medic! We need a medic!” someone shouts.

Each man is surrounded by people, one group holding Matar down and the other tending to Sir Salman’s wounds.

Someone brings a stack of towels and another elevates his legs.

Sir Salman gave evidence on Tuesday about the roughly 15 stab wounds he sustained, including a blinding blow to his right eye and one that pierced the hand he raised to defend himself.

“I was dying. That was my predominant thought,” said Sir Salman, who described seeing blood pouring on to his clothes.

The video demonstrated just how rapidly the morning changed.

“Good morning, Chautauqua,” the smiling moderator, Sony Ton-Aime, says from a podium ahead of the planned discussion on keeping writers safe.

Sir Salman was to speak along with Henry Reese, the co-founder of City of Asylum Pittsburgh, a safe haven for persecuted authors and artists.

Mr Reese was also injured in the attack.

“Good morning,” the audience responds.

Gasps and screams then fill the amphitheatre as the attack unfolds.

Mr Ton-Aime and institution staff run towards the fray and some audience members hoist themselves on to the stage to help.

It is not clear in the video that Sir Salman has been stabbed, but a voice appearing to call 911 is heard relaying what happened.

“Someone’s been stabbed, severely,” the male voice says.

“Salman Rushdie has been stabbed. Several times. On the main stage of the amphitheatre.”

As jurors in the Chautauqua County courtroom watched the presentation on a large monitor, Matar kept his gaze downward, unable to see the video from the defence table, which was behind the screen.

Earlier on Friday, the court played about three minutes of video from a state police investigator’s interview with Matar.

In a small interrogation room at the police barracks in Jamestown, Matar leans forward in a chair, his forearms resting on his knees.

He is wearing black trousers, a green camouflage T-shirt and black jacket as seen in the institution’s video and described in the evidence of several witnesses.

“Sure, I’ll answer some questions,” Matar tells investigator Travis Nagle.

He appears calm and co-operative, spelling his first and last name and providing his phone number and address in Fairview, New Jersey.

Investigator Scott Mills gave evidence that he took a statement from Sir Salman and a DNA swab 10 days later, when the author was still in hospital in Erie, Pennsylvania.

Sir Salman, he said, had numerous obvious injuries and was heavily bandaged.

Stabbed and slashed in the head, eye, neck, torso, leg and hand, Sir Salman spent 17 days at the Pennsylvania hospital and more than three weeks at a New York City rehabilitation centre.

The trial in Chautauqua County Court, a short distance from the Chautauqua Institution, is expected to last at least through next week.

It is not known whether Matar will give evidence.

Matar was also indicted on federal terrorism charges related to the attack.

That indictment alleges Matar was motivated by a Hezbollah leader’s 2006 endorsement of a decades-old fatwa by the late Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

The fatwa followed publication of Sir Salman’s novel The Satanic Verses, which some Muslims consider blasphemous.

The 1989 edict sent Sir Salman into hiding for years, but the author of Midnight’s Children and Victory City travelled freely over the past quarter of a century after Iran announced it would not enforce the fatwa.

The video shows the attacker being led away while others remain on stage with Sir Salman.

“Given what has just happened, we would like to evacuate the hall,” a Chautauqua Institution administrator says to the now silent crowd.

“If you’d like to contemplate or meditate or pray,” she adds, “we’d appreciate that.”