Cataleya awoke with a knife to her neck. Her father Q. A. wanted to kill the then 17-year-old because of her homosexuality. She barely survived.
“He screamed, ‘You’re gay?, you’re gay?’ and slashed the knife through my neck.” Those were the words Cataleya used to describe how her father tried to kill her in October 2019. Cataleya was still a man at the time and just 17 years old. Because of the severe injuries, Cataleya, who called herself Seran at the time, had to be placed in an induced coma. With a lot of will to live and luck, she survived her father’s knife attack – large scars bear witness to the attack.The father, who is of Iraqi origin, must now stand trial in Switzerland. The charges are attempted murder, attempted intentional homicide or grievous bodily harm.According to the indictment of the public prosecutor’s office of the Canton of Bern, the attack occurred on May 29, 2019, in Emmental. Q. A. woke his daughter, who was still a man at the time, with a knife held to her neck. The knife was 27 centimetres long, according to the documents. With it, he inflicted injuries on the victim’s neck, face and chest, according to the investigation. Among others, several deep cut wounds on the neck were detected by the experts. The trachea was also cut and the thyroid gland was severed, according to the report.”The victim suffered life threatening injuries, lost about 1 to 1.5 litres of blood and had to be intubated in hospital,” the indictment says. There is also talk of permanent disfigurement due to the scars, which are still clearly visible.