Holocaust scholar and survivor Elie Wiesel testified that he feared he was being kidnapped when a New Jersey man allegedly yanked him off a San Francisco hotel elevator.
Wiesel's testimony Monday came after opening statements in the trial of 24-year-old Eric Hunt, who is accused of accosting the Nobel Laureate in February 2007. The 79-year-old managed to escape uninjured.
Hunt has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to charges of attempted kidnapping, elder abuse, false imprisonment, battery, stalking and hate crimes. Hunt's attorney has described his client as mentally ill and not anti-Semitic.
Wiesel, who chronicled his experiences as a Jewish teenager at two Nazi death camps in the book "Night," told authorities a young man at the Argent Hotel asked him for an interview, then dragged him off the elevator. The assailant fled after Wiesel began to scream.
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