MAYVILLE, N.Y. (AP) — In 2022, Salman Rushdie was about to deliver a lecture before a live audience in western New York when a man ran towards him and plunged a knife into the author’s hand as he raised it in self-defense.
“After that there are many blows, to my neck, to my chest, to my eye, everywhere,” Rushdie recalled in a memoir that followed. “I feel my legs give way, and I fall.”
In the coming weeks, Rushdie is expected to return to the same New York county to recount the experience as one of the first witnesses in the trial of the man charged with wielding the knife that day, Hadi Matar.
Jury selection got underway Tuesday. Matar, 27, of Fairview, New Jersey, has pleaded not guilty to charges of attempted murder and assault.
Under different circumstances, Rushdie’s book, which details his account of that day and his recovery, might offer important evidence in the Aug. 12, 2022, attack that left the 77-year-old blind in his right eye and his hand permanently damaged.
But “this isn’t a back alley event that occurs unwitnessed in a dark alley,” said Chautauqua County District Attorney Jason Schmidt following a pretrial hearing. “This is something that was recorded, it was witnessed live by thousands of people.”
Jurors will be shown video of the attack, as well as photos and documentation, and an estimated 15 witnesses are expected to take the stand. Judge David Foley said once jury selection is complete, the trial would take up to a week and a half.
Matar’s lawyer, Nathaniel Barone, has not explained how he plans to defend his client and has clapped back at critics who question why Matar did not take a plea deal.
“That’s not what this is about. It’s about due process,” Barone said. “It’s about receiving a fair trial … If someone wants to exercise those rights, they’re entitled to do that.”
In a separate indictment, federal authorities allege that Matar was motivated by a terrorist organization’s endorsement of a fatwa, or edict, calling for Rushdie’s death. A separate 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.
Foley asked potential jurors Tuesday whether they could fairly consider a case involving someone of Muslim descent or with strong religious beliefs. All indicated they could.
But finding jurors who have not already formed an opinion was proving harder.
Nearly all of the 27 men and women being screened Tuesday said they knew about what happened to Rushdie, either from news reports or acquaintances, and several said they had formed opinions that are unlikely to change based on what they hear at trial
Matar’s attorney sought unsuccessfully to move the trial out of Chautauqua County last year, citing pretrial publicity and potential prejudice against people of Middle Eastern descent among the small rural county’s mostly white residents.
Rushdie spent years in hiding after the late Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued the fatwa in 1989 after publication of the novel “The Satanic Verses,” which some Muslims consider blasphemous. 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.
But jurors in the Chautauqua County case are unlikely to hear about the fatwa, according to Schmidt. He has said he doesn’t anticipate needing to show Matar’s possible motive to get a conviction on the state charges.
“From my standpoint, this is a localized event. It’s a stabbing event. It’s fairly straightforward,” Schmidt said. “I don’t really see a need to get into motive evidence, whether that’s applicable or not applicable and what that consists of. I’d like to avoid all of that.”
Barone, the defense attorney, said jurors should be screened for prejudice nonetheless, given the discussions of the fatwa during previous court proceedings.
“They’ve talked about the reason why this alleged crime supposedly occurred was because of this book involving Muslims, all that. So it’s kind of like the barn door’s been opened,” he said.
Matar was born in the U.S. But holds dual citizenship in Lebanon, where his parents were born. Rushdie is a native of India who lived for years in London. He became a U.S. Citizen in 2016.
Matar has been held without bail since his arrest after being subdued by onlookers who rushed the amphitheater stage. The event’s moderator, Henry Reese, co-founder of City of Asylum in Pittsburgh, was also wounded.
