Swiss court convicts woman of stabbing attack, IS ties

Switzerland’s federal criminal court convicts a Swiss-Italian woman of attempted murder and ties to the banned radical group Islamic State over the stabbing of two women in a department store.

She is handed a nine-year prison sentence.

The attacker, who is in her late 20s but was not identified by name, is also convicted by the court in the town of Bellinzona of “repeated illegal practice of prostitution,” the court says. Regulated prostitution is allowed in Switzerland.

The verdict follows a four-day trial in late August and early September over the Nov. 24, 2020, attack in the Manor chain department store in the southern Swiss city of Lugano.

The attack was a rare instance of violence linked to radical Islamic extremism in Switzerland, which was largely spared the wave of such violence that has hit other countries in Europe and around the world over the past two decades.