In November 2020, a young woman from Ticino attacked two women with a knife in Lugano. The charge before the Federal Criminal Court is multiple attempted murder. A jihadist motive is suspected.
The Federal Criminal Court in Bellinzona.
She spoke quickly and a lot, laughing in between again and again. But sometimes she didn’t say anything. For example, she did not answer the question with whom she had spoken in advance about the knife attack in the Manor department store in the center of Lugano. Two people knew about it. She didn’t want to name names. It became clear that she had planned the crime for a long time. Actually for Christmas Eve, December 24th.
But then the 29-year-old from Ticino brought the attack forward by a month. On November 24, 2020, shortly before 2 p.m. in the Lugano Manor, she stabbed two complete strangers with a bread knife. She showed no remorse for her actions at the start of the trial before the Federal Criminal Court in Bellinzona on Monday. On the contrary.
Contacts with Syrian fighters
When asked what she would do today if she could go back to that day, she said, “I would do the same thing, only better.” She had appeared all in black, complete with a head veil. But she had to do this at the behest of the presiding judge Fiorenza Bergomi. “Is the Muslim religion not respected here?” she provocatively asked the judge.
Even the photos of the deep and bleeding cut on the neck of the first victim, which the court showed, left them cold. “I don’t feel anything, it doesn’t make an impression on me.” These were shocking statements for the audience, but especially for the woman who was the victim of this attack and who, as a private prosecutor, sat in the courtroom directly behind the representatives of the federal prosecutor’s office. She was extremely lucky that the cut bypassed the carotid artery.
As to the motivation for this attack, the accused explained that she wanted to prove that as a woman she was also capable of carrying out a terrorist attack. Before the attack, the woman who had converted to Islam was in contact with two Syrian fighters via Facebook, who incidentally advised her against it. She supported her fight with around 18,000 francs, as she said: “You should buy food and weapons from it.” The money came from her illegal work as a prostitute. She earned around 5,000 francs a month. This income was on top of her full disability pension, which she had already been awarded due to her mental health problems.
Serious mental problems
During the interrogation of the accused, the picture emerged of a young woman who has slipped from one catastrophe to the next in her life and is suffering from serious psychological problems. She had epileptic seizures up to the age of seven, later she suffered from anorexia and attended a special school. At 17 she became pregnant, at 18 she gave birth to a child she didn’t want, who was then adopted by her parents. She married the child’s father, an Afghan national; At first the marriage went well, then she filed for divorce after being beaten and also sexually abused, as she explained in court.
Because of her psychological problems, she was often treated, received social assistance, and later she was recognized as a 100 percent invalid. She was twice admitted to Mendrisio’s psychiatric hospital, once by force, after returning from the Turkish-Syrian border, where she had attempted to enter Syria to join IS fighters.
She has now completely broken with her family and no longer receives visitors even in the detention center. In the late morning she explained how she had come to Islam through her ex-husband and later fell in love with a Syrian fighter via the Internet.
In the afternoon, Carlo Calanchini testified as court psychiatrist. He explained that the woman’s criminal responsibility was reduced to a moderate degree because she was suffering from a psychotic disorder
suffering from a disorder resembling schizophrenia. The chances of recovery are rather low and the risk of recurrence is very high. Calanchini also pointed out the contradictions of this personality, which became clear on the first day of the trial. So she left the cruel assassination attempt on an uninvolved person cold, but she didn’t want to carry it out in a place where only acquaintances or former classmates could have been.
The trial will continue on Tuesday with the hearing of another psychiatrist. After a day’s break, the prosecution and defense will make their statements on Thursday. The federal prosecutor’s office will then also submit their criminal complaint.