Author Salman Rushdie said that part of him cannot be bothered to face the person who’s accused of trying to kill him in August 2022.
Hadi Matar, 24, is accused of stabbing Rushdie several times during an August 12, 2022, speech in Chautauqua, New York, according to state police.
In an interview with the BBC this week, Rushdie responded to a question asking if he’d attend Matar’s trial.
“I’m in two minds about it,” Rushdie said. “There’s one bit of me that actually wants to go and stand on the court and look at him and there’s another bit of me that just can’t be bothered.”
ALLEGED SALMAN RUSHDIE ATTACKER CHARGED WITH ATTEMPTED SECOND-DEGREE MURDER, PLEADS NOT GUILTY
Salman Rushdie attends the 68th National Book Awards Ceremony and Benefit Dinner on Nov. 15, 2017, in New York. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File)
“If he changes his plea to guilty then actually there’s not a trial, there’s just a sentencing, and it may well be that then my presence isn’t required,” he added.
Rushdie also said that he doesn’t “have a very high opinion of [Matar].”
“And I think what is important to me now is that you’re able to find life continuing. I’m more engaged with the business of, you know, getting on with it,” Rushdie said.
Rushdie was in the hospital for six weeks before he was able to return home. The author was left with blindness in one eye, a damaged liver, and severed nerves in one arm, according to his agent.
NEW YORK POLICE IDENTIFY MAN WHO ALLEGEDLY STABBED SALMAN RUSHDIE
Hadi Matar listens during an arraignment in the Chautauqua County Courthouse in Mayville, NY., Aug. 18, 2022. The criminal case against Matar, the man charged with stabbing author Salman Rushdie, involves so much potential evidence that prosecutors need more time to review it, the chief prosecutor said Wednesday, Sept. 7, 2022. (AP Photo/Joshua Bessex, File)
Hadi Matar, 24, center, arrives for an arraignment in the Chautauqua County Courthouse in Mayville, N.Y., Saturday, Aug. 13, 2022. Prosecutors on Wednesday asked the names of witnesses to Matar’s alleged attack on Salman Rushdie be withheld. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
Matar is charged with attempted second degree murder and second degree assault.
According to the report, Rushdie is in the process of writing a book about the near-death experience.
“There’s this colossal elephant in the room and, until I deal with that, it is difficult to take seriously anything else,” Rushdie said.
Rushdie has lived under the threat of a fatwa on his life issued by Iran in 1989 after he published a book called “The Satanic Verses” that was banned in the country and considered blasphemous by some Muslims.
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A view of who appears to be author Salman Rushdie treated by emergency personnel after being stabbed on stage before his scheduled speech at the Chautauqua Institution in Chautauqua, New York, U.S., August 12, 2022, in this picture obtained from social media. (Mary Newsom via REUTERS)
Iran has also offered over $3 million in reward for anyone who kills Rushdie.
Iran’s government has long since distanced itself from Khomeini’s decree, but anti-Rushdie sentiment lingered. In 2012, a semi-official Iranian religious foundation raised a bounty for Rushdie from $2.8 million to $3.3 million.
