Salman Rushdie testified for the second time in federal court in Buffalo, N.Y., on Thursday, July 23, 2026. The testimony came in the terrorism trial of Hadi Matar, the man accused in the stabbing attack that left Rushdie nearly killed four years ago.
The courtroom focus stayed on the attack itself, with Rushdie returning to the witness stand after a witness described video of the alleged stabbing a day earlier in Buffalo, N.Y. The testimony put the account of the injured witness and the account of the alleged attacker in the same proceeding.
Buffalo court testimony
Rushdie testified about being stabbed nearly to death in a western New York amphitheater. That made his appearance different from an ordinary witness account: he was not describing a distant event, but the attack he survived.
The trial took place in federal court in Buffalo, N.Y., where the government is pursuing a terrorism case against Matar. In that setting, the witness testimony is part of the evidence the jury is hearing about the attack and the defendant’s role in it.
Hadi Matar in Buffalo
On Wednesday, July 22, 2026, a witness described video of the alleged attack on Rushdie by Matar in federal court in Buffalo, N.Y. That sequence matters because it shows the case moving from description of the video record to Rushdie’s own account of what happened to him.
Matar was also seen walking into the Chautauqua County court in Mayville, N.Y., on May 16, 2025. The proceedings now in Buffalo have shifted the focus from that earlier court appearance to the federal terrorism trial tied to the stabbing.
Knife: The Attempted Murder of Salman Rushdie
Rushdie also attended the premiere of the documentary film Knife: The Attempted Murder of Salman Rushdie during the Sundance Film Festival on Jan. 25, 2026, at The Ray in Park City, Utah. The film title and the court testimony point to the same underlying event: the stabbing attack that has now become evidence in a federal trial.
For the jury, the immediate issue is the account of the attack itself and Matar’s alleged role in it. For readers following the case, Thursday’s testimony means the trial has moved deeper into the firsthand narrative of what happened to Rushdie, with the central witness now back on the stand.
