Man sentenced to prison for attack on Jewish tourist in Davos

Algerian sentenced to prison for attack on Jews in Davos Keystone-SDA

An asylum seeker has been sentenced to six months in prison in Graubünden for an attack on a Jewish tourist in Davos in the summer of 2024. The man did not appear before the Prättigau/Davos regional court for his trial on Thursday.

+Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox

The appeal of the 24-year-old Algerian is therefore deemed to have been withdrawn. He was therefore found guilty of discrimination on the grounds of race, ethnicity or religion according to the public prosecutor’s order. The man had repeatedly punched a 19-year-old Jewish tourist in the face on the promenade in Davos on the night of August 23, 2024.

In addition to the prison sentence, the convicted man must pay CHF765 ($948) in court costs and CHF3,000 for his public defender. The decision is not yet final and can be appealed to the Graubünden High Court within ten days.

+ No terrorist motive in attack on Jewish tourist in Davos

Deported to Belgium

After the incident, the Algerian was deported to Belgium in September 2024. His whereabouts are currently unclear, as the vice president of the court confirmed.

Mathias Fässler, head of the Graubünden Prison Service, told Keystone-SDA that with such a short sentence, the offender will not be transferred to his place of residence and the wanted person will not be extradited. As soon as the convicted person re-enters Switzerland and the police find him, he will be transferred to Graubünden to serve his sentence.

The same procedure applies to the second asylum seeker who spat at the same Jewish tourist and repeatedly shouted “free Palestine”. He is still wanted.

“We welcome the fact that the anti-Semitic attack in Davos has now also been legally categorised as racist discrimination,” explained Jonathan Kreutner, Secretary General of the Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities, on request. It was clearly a hate incident in Davos. A young British Jew was spat at, beaten and shouted at in the street solely because of his Jewish appearance.

Translated from German by DeepL/jdp

How we work

We select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools to translate them into English. A journalist then reviews the translation for clarity and accuracy before publication.  

Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. The news stories we select have been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team from news agencies such as Bloomberg or Keystone.

If you have any questions about how we work, write to us at [e-mail].