Swiss Turkish national indicted for ‘jihadist-motivated’ murder

Swiss Turkish national indicted for ‘jihadist-motivated’ murder

Web Desk
June 16, 2022

Swiss Turkish national indicted for ‘jihadist-motivated’ murder

A 28-year-old man has been charged in connection with a knife attack in western Switzerland.
He is accused of stabbing to death a man at a kebab restaurant near a train station.
Prosecutors say he also planned an arson attack in the name of the Islamic State group.

Swiss Turkish dual national has been charged in Switzerland with “jihadist motivated homicide” as well as an arson attack in the name of the Islamic State group, Swiss prosecutors said Thursday.

The Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland (OAG) announced that the 28-year-old man had been charged in connection with a knife attack in the western Swiss town of Morges nearly two years ago.

According to the ATS news agency, the suspect, whose name was not given, stabbed to death a 29-year-old Portuguese national at a kebab restaurant near the Morges train station on the evening of September 12, 2020.

The prosecution said he was facing a long line of charges, including murder, attempted intentional homicide and of violating the law against association with Al-Qaeda, IS, and related groups.

“The suspect planned and carried out a Jihadist-motivated attack with the aim of exacting revenge for the victims of the war between the coalition states and the ‘Islamic state’,” the OAG said in a statement.

Prior to the attack, the man is also suspected of several offenses, including sharing IS propaganda material, and attempting to join IS in the conflict zone between Syria and Iraq.

The OAG charges that the man had set off in 2019 with the aim of continuing to Turkey and on to Syria, but had not made it further than Italy before turning back to Switzerland.

In April 2019, he is also suspected of having attempted to cause an explosion at a filling station in Prilly, which like Morges is in the western Swiss canton of Vaud.

“He planned to set fire to the filling station and thereby carry out an attack in the name of IS, but was unable to do so,” the OAG said in its statement.

Since his arrest the day after the Morges murder, the man has been held in pre-trial detention. While inside, he is accused of assaulting and attempting to kill a guard, as well as assaulting a police officer.

Switzerland has not seen any large-scale attacks blamed on Islamic extremists, but it has seen some individual jihadist-linked attacks in recent years.