Knife came 'a millimetre from my brain': Salman Rushdie testifies at attacker's terrorism trial

What the report says

Sky News World reported that Sir Salman Rushdie has testified in the terrorism trial of the man already convicted of trying to kill him. The outlet’s headline quoted Rushdie as saying the knife came “a millimetre from my brain,” emphasizing the life-threatening nature of the stabbing injuries he described in court.

The publicly available Sky News text supplied for this digest does not identify the defendant or provide details of the testimony beyond noting that Rushdie appeared at the terrorism trial. Background from earlier widely reported proceedings: Rushdie was attacked on stage in August 2022 at the Chautauqua Institution in western New York while preparing to speak at a public event. The assailant was later convicted in state court of attempted murder and assault.

The new testimony matters because it places Rushdie, one of the world’s best-known novelists and a longtime target of threats, at the center of a separate terrorism-related case arising from the same attack. Such proceedings can examine questions beyond the physical assault itself, including alleged ideological or international links, depending on the charges before the court.

Rushdie, author of “The Satanic Verses,” lived for years under threat after Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a 1989 religious edict calling for his death. That history has made the 2022 attack and the subsequent trials closely watched by free expression advocates, literary organizations and legal observers.