The trial of a young Swiss woman accused of trying to cut the throats of two women in a department store in 2020 while shouting slogans in favor of the jihadist group Islamic State (IS) began this Monday in Switzerland.
The process opened at 09:30 (07:30 GMT) in the federal criminal court in Bellinzona, in the south of the country, under a heavy police presence.
One of the points that the trial must determine is whether it is an unbalanced or an “unscrupulous terrorist”, as the prosecution maintains.
The defendant, who was 28 years old at the time of the incident, appeared dressed in black — as is the norm in this court.
The accused had her head covered and after a long discussion between the president of the court and her lawyer, she agreed to reveal herself.
“I am a Muslim,” she said, with a hint of a smile to justify her willingness to cover her head.
On November 24, the woman went up to the fifth floor of the Manor department store in Lugano, in the Italian-speaking part of the country, bought a knife and randomly attacked two women, trying to cut their throats.
One of the victims was seriously injured in the neck.
The other, injured in one hand, managed to dominate the attacker, with the help of other people, until the arrival of the police.
According to the Swiss prosecutor’s office, the young woman — whose name was not leaked by the court — acted “intentionally” and “without any scruple.”
During the attack, the attacker shouted slogans such as “Allah is great” and “I will avenge the Prophet Mohammed” and also stated: “I am here for the Islamic State”, referring to the jihadist group.
On the first day of the hearings, the woman with long black hair answered questions from the president of the court.
The defendant — who is the daughter of a Swiss and a Serbian — recounted with a broken voice the epileptic seizures she suffered in her childhood, later to have an adolescence marked by anorexia, between hairdressing and sales practices.
Since her childhood she has been treated by psychologists and psychiatrists and even in prison she continues in a treatment, which she affirmed that she does not like and that she says makes her “nervous”.
The woman said that she became pregnant at the age of 17 by her future husband of Afghan origin, whom she married two years later, to finally divorce last year.
“Things started well, then things went wrong,” she said, explaining that her husband did not want her to study or have an abortion.
Because she did not want to care for the child after his birth, she left him to his parents, who adopted him.
The defendant is prosecuted for “repeated attempted murder” and violation of an article of federal law that prohibits the jihadist groups Al Qaeda and IS.
