TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) – Gabrielle Giffords limped to the front of the courtroom and stared silently Thursday as she came face to face for the first time with the man who tried to kill her.

The former congresswoman hadn’t been near Jared Lee Loughner since the deadly rampage outside a meet-and-greet at a supermarket that killed six people and left her partially blind, with a paralyzed right arm and brain injury.

Giffords’ astronaut husband told Loughner what Giffords couldn’t, before he was sentenced to seven life terms for the January 2011 slayings and attempted assassination of a member of Congress.