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

Author Salman Rushdie described the frenzied moments when a masked man rushed at him on a stage and repeatedly slashed him with a knife.

The author recounted in vivid testimony the moment when an attacker stabbed him about 15 times as he was about to give a lecture in western New York.

A man injured alongside author Salman Rushdie in a knife attack on a New York lecture stage told jurors that he tried to stop the assault once he realized it wasn't a prank and was left with a gash above his eye.

Feb. 14 marked the anniversary of the 1989 fatwa issued against Salman Rushdie by Iran’s Ayatollah. It was also the fourth day of testimony in the trial of Hadi Matar, the New Jersey man accused of stabbing the renowned author at the Chautauqua Institution in August 2022.

Hadi Matar is charged with attempted murder in the attack, which took place in 2022 as Mr. Rushdie was about to speak at an arts conference in western New York.

In his own words, author Salman Rushdie describes the moments when a stranger rushed at him on stage in western New York and began attacking him