Sir Salman Rushdie trial: Injured man ‘initially thought attack was a prank’

A man injured alongside British author Sir Salman Rushdie in a knife attack on a New York lecture stage has said he tried to stop the assault once he realised it was not a prank and was left with a gash above his eye.

It took several stitches to close the cut, Henry Reese, 75, told jurors during the third day of the trial of Hadi Matar, the 27-year-old New Jersey man charged with trying to kill Sir Salman.

On Tuesday, the author described being the target of the unprovoked and near fatal stabbing that began as he and Mr Reese sat down for a conversation as part of the Chautauqua Institution’s daily summer lecture series.

Sir Salman said he likely survived because of the actions of Mr Reese and other bystanders who tackled and subdued the attacker.

The 77-year-old was stabbed and slashed in the head, neck, torso, leg and hand and left blinded in one eye.

During about an hour in the witness box, he described lying in a “lake” of his own blood on the stage and aware he might die.

Mr Reese said he initially thought the man he saw running toward Sir Salman was part of “a prank”.

“At some point it became real, and I got up and tried to stop the attacker,” he said.

A large audience had taken their seats in the institution’s 4,400-seat amphitheatre for the talk on keeping writers safe that August 2022 morning.

Mr Reese is co-founder of City of Asylum Pittsburgh, part of a network providing refuge for persecuted writers and artists that Sir Salman inspired.

The author of Midnight’s Children and Victory City spent years in hiding after the late Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini called for his death with a fatwa in 1989 following the publication of the novel The Satanic Verses, which some Muslims consider blasphemous.

After Iran announced that it would not enforce the decree, Sir Salman had travelled freely.

A separate federal indictment alleges Matar, who was not born when the fatwa was issued, was motivated by a 2006 speech in which the leader of the militant group Hezbollah endorsed it.

A trial on the federal terrorism-related charges will be scheduled in US District Court in Buffalo.

The current trial is expected to last at least until next week. Since Monday, jurors have also heard from employees of the Chautauqua Institution and others who either witnessed the attack or the immediate aftermath.

Matar is a dual Lebanese-US citizen, who was born in the US.