Swiss man committed to secure clinic for therapy over antisemitic attacks

Zurich court orders therapy for synagogue attacker. Keystone-SDA

A Zurich district court has ordered that a 27-year-old Swiss man be placed in a secure clinic to undergo psychiatric treatment after he assaulted Orthodox Jews and prepared an antisemitic knife attack that was thwarted in December 2024. The court found that he suffers from paranoid schizophrenia.

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In a ruling published on Tuesday, the court followed the prosecution’s request to declare the man not criminally responsible due to his mental illness. Judges ordered compulsory institutional therapy in a closed facility.

It found that the accused had committed assault and engaged in punishable preparatory acts aimed at causing serious bodily harm.

Attacks on two dates

The first incidents occurred on December 8, 2024. That day, the man pursued and violently slapped an Orthodox Jew in a neighbourhood with a large Jewish community. He also attempted to snatch a passer‑by’s bag in the same area.

Four days later, on December 12, he went to the grounds of a Jewish school and punched a young person in the ear. He then roamed around a nearby synagogue while armed with a kitchen knife. According to the prosecution, he intended to seriously injure members of the Jewish community.

Security staff at the synagogue spotted him and alerted police. The man left the premises but was arrested shortly afterwards and subsequently spent 18 months in pre‑trial detention.

Schizophrenia and addictions

A psychiatric assessment found that the man suffers from paranoid schizophrenia as well as cannabis and alcohol addiction. At the time of the offences, he was experiencing delusions of persecution and believed he was engaged in defensive combat.

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The defence contested the psychiatric report and sought the man’s acquittal. According to his lawyer, the accused did not suffer from schizophrenia but had “a very critical attitude towards Jews, especially because of the war in Gaza.” In court, the man said he was born and raised in Switzerland and had frequently spent time in Morocco.

A community already on edge

The incidents took place nine months after a radicalised 15‑year‑old seriously injured an Orthodox Jew with a knife in Zurich. That earlier attack had already heightened fears of further violence targeting the Jewish community.

Adapted from French by AI/sb

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