As they passed 39th Street, Enright suddenly screamed, “This is a checkpoint, mother-
f- – - er! I have to put you down!” and began calling for the king of Saudi Arabia, Sharif said.
Enright allegedly reached through the cab’s partition with a Leatherman knife — and while struggling with Sharif, he slashed the cabby in the face and from the center of his throat up to his jawline.
“I asked him, ‘Why are you killing me? Please stop killing me,’ ” Sharif said. “He said, ‘This is a checkpoint. It’s my duty to put you down.’ “
Sharif stopped the cab on Third Avenue at East 43rd Street, and Enright jumped out.
The cabby tried to chase his attacker. “I held my throat. It was like a shower of blood. My shirt was soaked,” he said.
A police officer saw the men. Enright allegedly blamed the victim, yelling, “He tried to rob me!”
The cops didn’t buy it, and hauled him to Bellevue Hospital because he was too drunk to be processed.
Enright underwent a psychological evaluation, police said.
“If the cut had been any longer or deeper, [Sharif] would have been dead,” Manhattan Assistant District Attorney James Zaleta said at Enright’s arraignment.
Enright, who has prior arrests for disorderly conduct and underage drinking, pleaded not guilty to attempted murder as a hate crime and other charges.
His lawyer, Jason Martin, told Judge ShawnDya Simpson, “He’s terrified and shocked at the allegations. He’s just trying to cope right now.”
Enright was held without bail.
Sharif was treated at Bellevue and released early yesterday.
“The man I picked up and this man [who stabbed me] were two different men. So much anger and hatred,” Sharif said. “I don’t understand. This man never met me, and he hated me.”
The shaken-up cabby accepted Mayor Bloomberg’s invitation to meet him at City Hall today.
“This attack runs counter to everything that New Yorkers believe, no matter what God we may pray to,” Bloomberg said.
Gov. Paterson also weighed in, saying, “The potential for this kind of violence is one of the reasons why I have called publicly for a respectful and unifying conversation about the Park51 [mosque] project.
“We cannot and will not allow bias and ignorance to infect our communities and deny our hardworking, innocent residents the respect they deserve.”
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