The accused appeared at the start of the trial on Monday wearing an orange jumper. This colour was apparently meant to be an allusion to the prisoners of Guantanamo, because he himself has been in solitary confinement for 820 days. He had his hands cuffed and always sat bent over.
He rarely looked up at the three judges, only a few moments when his full bearded face could be seen on the monitor in the press room. He spoke bent to the floor and quietly, but answered the presiding judge’s questions throughout. Two policemen from the Ticino cantonal police guarded him.
The charges against the 29-year-old Turkish-Swiss citizen from Prilly are serious. He has to answer for murder, intentional homicide, attempted intentional homicide, simple bodily harm, attempted arson and causing an explosion, violation of the Al-Qaeda/IS law and other offences.
The most serious charge is that of killing a then 29-year-old Portuguese man in a kebab restaurant in Morges on September 12, 2020. According to the indictment, while stabbing his victim with a kitchen knife at 9.10 pm in the evening, he allegedly shouted “Allahu akbar” (Allah is the greatest).
Before the attack, he allegedly walked past the pub eleven times. The victim, who had been dining with his family in the pub on that Saturday evening, died at the scene. The perpetrator fled, but was arrested the following day. This is said to be the first fatal knife attack in Switzerland with a jihadist background.
The Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland accuses O.A.* of having radicalised himself in the years before the attack. He denied this. However, he appeared confused and his statements were partly contradictory. “Islam means peace”, he said in flawless French. He was still embracing this religion, he said.
Since he was still in this discovery phase, he could not describe his own development as “radicalisation”. As a devout Sunni, he prays five times a day. He also distanced himself from violence and from attacks with firearms. He said he had not joined IS but supported the idea of a caliphate.
Referring to the knife attack, he said that at the time he had wanted to punish those who waged war against the Islamic State, including Switzerland: “I wanted to avenge the Prophet. I chose my victim at random. It had to be an adult – a man”. In prison, he says, he has since admitted he was wrong. “I am very sorry – today I am sad for the victim’s family,” the accused said.
The case of the fatal attack is shocking. However, the fact that the accused O.A. was already well known to the investigating authorities before the knife attack and was on a dangerous persons list is also problematic. In April 2019, he was arrested after trying to blow up a petrol station in Prilly.
He was held in pre-trial detention between April 2019 and July 13, 2020, after which he was released on strict conditions. Exactly two months later, he carried out the fatal attack in Morges.
A friend of the victim suffered a severe shock as a result of the attack and has since needed psychological treatment. The family has constituted itself as a joint plaintiff and some Portuguese family members have come to Bellinzona for the start of the trial.
The accused is also charged with assaults, some of which he committed while in custody, for example against a member of the supervisory staff and against a federal police officer. The trial is scheduled to last three days and may be extended until the end of the week. The verdict is scheduled to be handed down on January 10, 2023.
The case of the suspected assassin of Morges brings back memories of the knife attack that took place in November 2020 in the Manor department stores’ in Lugano. A 29-year-old woman from Ticino had stabbed two random victims and seriously injured one woman.
This September, the Federal Criminal Court in Bellinzona sentenced the perpetrator to nine years’ imprisonment for attempted murder and violating the IS/Al-Qaeda law. Before starting her prison sentence, she will be treated as an inpatient in a closed facility because of her mental disorders. Unlike the man now before the Federal Criminal Court, she has never regretted her crime.