(AFP) In a rare case of alleged Islamist “terrorism” in Switzerland, a woman will go on trial next week over a brutal knife attack on two shoppers at an upscale department store.
The woman, who cannot be named, allegedly tried to slit the throats of two women shopping at the Manor store in Lugano, in Switzerland’s southern, Italian-speaking Ticino region on November 24, 2020.
The defendant, 28 at the time, is suspected of committing a “jihadist knife attack” and had “intended to kill her victims and to commit a terrorist act on behalf of IS” (the Islamic State group), the attorney general’s office said earlier this year.
When her trial opens at the Federal Criminal Court in Bellinzona, near Lugano, on Monday, she will face charges of attempted murder and violating laws against association with Al-Qaeda, IS and related groups.
