‘Terrorist’ knife attack at train station in Switzerland leaves three wounded
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Officials said the perpetrator was a 31-year-old Swiss-Turkish national with a history of psychological problems.
PHOTO: EPA
- A man shouting "Allahu akbar!" injured three people in a knife attack at Winterthur train station on May 28, officially deemed a "terrorist act" by Swiss officials.
- The attacker, Nesip Dedeler, a Swiss-Turkish national, had mental health issues and links to a radical mosque; he recently left a psychiatric clinic.
- Witnesses described panic. Officials questioned the psychiatric clinic's decision to release Dedeler, stating their assessment was "obviously wrong".
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WINTERTHUR, Switzerland – A man reportedly shouting “Allahu akbar!” injured three people in a knife attack at a train station in Switzerland on May 28 before being arrested, in what officials said was “a terrorist act”.
Witnesses described scenes of panic and confusion when the man - who authorities said was a 31-year-old Swiss-Turkish national with a history of psychological problems - suddenly began stabbing people at the main train station in Winterthur, Switzerland’s sixth largest city, during the morning rush hour.
“I am exceptionally calling this a terrorist attack,” Mr Mario Fehr, in charge of security in the Swiss canton of Zurich, told a press conference.
Regional police commander Marius Weyermann agreed, telling reporters it was “clear from the scene that the motive for this act must be sought in the realm of radicalisation and extremism”.
He said police had received the first emergency call at 8.28am (2.28pm in Singapore) and that the suspected perpetrator was arrested by 8.33am.
The man, identified as Nesip Dedeler, had been checked into a psychiatric clinic earlier this week before he showed up at the Winterthur station, wielding a knife, authorities said.
He injured three men, aged 28, 43 and 52, with the eldest seriously wounded by stab wounds to his thigh and forced to undergo emergency surgery, Comm Weyermann said.
Swiss President Guy Parmelin said he was “shocked by the terrorist attack... This deeply affects me”.
“I wish the three injured a swift and full recovery. And I thank the emergency services for their work.”
The attack took place at a train station in Winterthur - Switzerland’s sixth largest city - during the morning rush hour.
PHOTO: EPA
‘Goosebumps’
Images broadcast by several Swiss media outlets and on social media showed a man with long dark hair and a full beard running in front of the station shouting “Allahu akbar!” (God is the greatest), while raising his right hand.
A 65-year-old taxi driver named Turhan Muslu told the Blick newspaper that he witnessed the attack.
“I saw him rush off the ramp and try to stab a man,” he told the daily, adding that the man had “fought back fiercely”, before station guards arrived and subdued the attacker.
“It all happened so fast. If those security guards hadn’t (arrived) so quickly, I don’t know what would have happened.”
In the published footage, filmed from a distance on a mobile phone, the man, wearing a black T-shirt and shorts, is seen running past a group of young children apparently on a school trip, without stopping.
“I heard a man scream ‘Allahu akbar’ five or six times, in a very agitated manner,” a young man who witnessed the chaos that ensued told Blick, which did not provide his name.
The witness described how the young children and other bystanders had “run across the road” in panic.
“I still have goosebumps,” he said.
Three men, aged 28, 43 and 52, were wounded in the attack, with the eldest having to undergo emergency surgery after being stabbed in the thigh.
PHOTO: AFP
Psychiatric hospital
Regional authorities said the attacker had grown up in Winterthur, where he had become a naturalised Swiss citizen in 2009. But he appeared to have spent most of the past two years in Turkey.
Dedeler was known to have links to a radical mosque, whose imam was charged in 2017 with calling for the murder of non-practicing Muslims, authorities said.
He himself had faced a complaint in 2015 for allegedly violating a ban on spreading propaganda for the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militant group, they said.
Reacting to the attack, Switzerland’s Islamic Central Council (IZR) said in a statement that it “strongly condemns this cowardly and barbaric act”.
IS, 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”.
Swiss authorities also highlighted Dedeler’s history of mental illness, pointing out that he had shown up at a Winterthur police station on May 25, speaking incoherently, and he had been taken to a psychiatric clinic.
But he had left the institution the next day, and doctors had determined he did not pose a danger to himself or others, Mr Fehr said.
“Why that decision was made is beyond our knowledge, but the assessment was obviously wrong,” he said. AFP
