Testimony is set to continue in the trial of the man charged with stabbing famed author Salman Rushdie in a frenzied knife attack on a western New York stage.

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.

Hadi Matar, 27, of Fairview, New Jersey, is charged with attempted murder and assault and could face a total of 32 years behind bars.

Lawyers began delivering opening statements Monday at the trial of the man charged with trying to fatally stab author Salman Rushdie in front of a lecture audience in western New York. Rushdie, 77, is expected to testify during the trial of Hadi Matar,

Hadi Matar, who is on trial for the knife attack against the British author, has also been accused of supporting terrorism and attempting to carry out a fatwa calling for Rushdie's assassination.

The trial of a man who allegedly stabbed renowned British-Indian author Sir Salman Rushdie multiple times in 2022, leaving him blind in one eye, began on Monday in upstate New York. Hadi Matar, a 27-year-old man from New Jersey, is facing charges of attempted murder and assault. He has pleaded not guilty.

Rushdie, who was raised in a Muslim Kashmiri family, went into hiding under the protection of British police in 1989 after Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, then Iran's supreme leader,

Salman Rushdie was so stunned when a masked man started to stab him on a stage in western New York that the author didn’t even try to fight back, a prosecutor said Monday during opening statements in the suspect’s attempted murder trial.

The trial started with prosecutors outlining their case against suspect Hadi Matar before they called two witnesses to the stand.