Australian man arrested over alleged stabbing in Zurich
Terrified shoppers looked on in horror as a man entered an outdoor equipment store on a busy Swiss street and allegedly stabbed a customer in broad daylight.
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An Australian man has been arrested in Switzerland, after allegedly stabbing and seriously injuring a man in broad daylight at a Zurich camping store.
The 28-year-old man is suspected of entering the store at about 4pm Saturday local time and attacking a 41-year-old man, according to a statement from the police.
Witnesses described their terror as the man entered the Transa shop on busy Lagerstrasse, before allegedly approaching and stabbing the customer with a knife.
“The police are currently not allowing anyone into the Transa store,” a witness called Miriam told the local website News Scout.
“There were eight police cars here, the criminal investigation department, the emergency ambulance and an ambulance.
“People are shocked and nobody knows what exactly happened.”
Authorities are now investigating the circumstances of the attack, including the motive for the stabbing and whether the two men knew each other.
Zurich City Police arrested the suspect on scene, while the victim was taken to hospital.
Police have not yet revealed the Australian man’s identity.
The Public Prosecutor’s Office for Serious Violent Crime and specialists from the Zurich Forensic Institute and the Zurich Institute of Legal Medicine are involved in the investigation.
A Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade spokesperson said they were aware of the reports of an Australian detained in Switzerland and were making urgent inquiries.
It’s the fifth stabbing to have caused alarm in Europe this week, Reuters reports.
An Algerian man was arrested on Saturday over a deadly knife attack in France, while a Syrian refugee was detained over a stabbing at the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin.
Two days earlier, a teenage attacker killed two women at a shopping centre in the Czech Republic, while a Syrian man was last week arrested over a deadly attack in Austria.
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Originally published as Australian man arrested over alleged stabbing in Zurich
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