Switzerland Convicts A Woman With Islamic State Ties For Attempted Murder

On Monday, Switzerland’s federal criminal court found a Swiss-Italian woman guilty of attempted murder and having ties to the banned radical group Islamic State in connection with the stabbing of two women in a department store. She was recently sentenced to nine years in prison.

The attacker, who is in her late twenties but was not identified by name, was also convicted on Monday by a court in Bellinzona of “repeated illegal practise of prostitution,” as stated by the court. Switzerland permits regulated prostitution.

The verdict comes after a four-day trial in late August and early September over the Nov. 24, 2020, attack on the Manor chain department store in Lugano, Switzerland.

The suspect was apprehended quickly, and the two women who were apparently attacked at random survived. According to regional police, one person suffered serious but non-life-threatening injuries, while the other suffered minor injuries.

The court ruled that the attacker used a knife to try to decapitate the victims “while praising ISIS”—an acronym for the radical Islamic State group—on purpose.

The court said in a statement that the defendant acted with a total absence of scruples, a particularly odious motive and goal, and showed no signs of wanting to repent or make serious apologies, either during the investigation or court proceedings.

The attack was a case of Islamic extremist violence in Switzerland, a country that has generally avoided the wave of such violence that has otherwise ravaged countries in Europe and around the world over the past 20 years.

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