"His testimony was very even tempered, even keeled, very articulate. His memories, even as he acknowledged the traumatic setting of, of what happened."
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00So today, Salman Rushdie testified in the trial of a man who is accused of trying to murder him.
00:07His testimony was very even-tempered, even-keeled, very articulate.
00:12His memories, even as he acknowledged the traumatic setting of what happened,
00:18a couple of times he even found moments to make a joke.
00:23His eye had been stabbed to the point where he can't see out of it anymore,
00:27and he referred to having surgery on that eye in which they had to seal it shut,
00:32and he talked about how painful it was,
00:34and then he kind of smiled and turned to the jury and said,
00:37I don't recommend it.
00:39The cross-examination was very brief.
00:42It was very mild.
00:44The defense attorney even was relatively polite,
00:48at one point even a little bit starstruck.
00:51As much as you could challenge him,
00:53he tried to kind of question whether he really could remember it all very well.
00:58Was he too traumatized to remember it well?
01:01And this is something he kind of pushed back on,
01:04and his memories were quite clear.
01:07If there was something he didn't remember precisely, he would say so.
01:11It should be noted this is the first time that he was in the same room
01:16as the man accused of trying to kill him.
01:19There was no indication of them acknowledging the other.