Three people were stabbed and injured in what authorities have called an “act of terror” at a train station in the Swiss city of Winterthur.
The assault occurred just before 8:30 am (06:00 GMT) on 28th May. The suspect – who was arrested five minutes after emergency services were alerted – is a 31-year-old Swiss-Turkish dual national who lives in Winterthur, regional police chief Marius Weyermann said.
He had come to the authorities’ attention in 2015 for distributing propaganda of the ISIL (ISIS) group, Weyermann added. In recent days, he was taken to a psychiatric facility after calling the police emergency number and making “confused comments”, but he left on Wednesday after a doctor determined that he wasn’t dangerous.
The attacker wounded three men in Thursday’s attack, all of them from Switzerland, aged 28, 43 and 52 years.
The first two were discharged or were about to be released from hospitals by mid-afternoon, Weyermann said. The senior one was still in hospital following surgery for a thigh wound.
Weyermann said, “investigators are convinced the man was acting alone.”
The Zurich region’s highest security official, Mario Fehr, called the attack “an evil act of terror”.
The suspect was born in Switzerland and became a Swiss citizen in 2009 and had been residing in Turkiye for the past two years, he said.
Swiss President Guy Parmelin said he was “shocked by the terrorist attack … This deeply affects me”.
“I hope the three injured get a speedy and complete recovery, and I extend my gratitude to the Emergency Services for their efforts.”
Reacting to the attack, Switzerland’s Islamic Central Council (IZR) said in a statement that it “strongly condemns this cowardly and barbaric act”.
ISIL, it added, “is not an Islamic movement, but a perverse terrorist sect whose sole aim is to sow discord, murder innocent people and damage the reputation of Muslims worldwide”.
Winterthur boasts a population of approximately 123,000 and is situated in the northeast of Switzerland, close to the largest city of the country, Zurich.
