In Switzerland, if you are underage and commit the most heinous crime known to man, the worst you can expect is one year in prison, and the most likely outcome is that it will be commuted to compulsory therapy. Also, the most outrage the judge will be able to muster will be to call the crime “unscrupulous.”

A Swiss Muslim teen, born in Tunisia and naturalized as a Swiss citizen as a baby, stabbed an Orthodox Jewish man 17 times outside Synagogue Agudas Achim in Zurich in March 2024, puncturing and collapsing his lung and inflicting other serious injuries. Miraculously, the 50-year-old man survived after undergoing emergency surgery.

The then-15-year-old declared his intention to enter the synagogue and kill as many Jews as possible. Unable to get in, thanks to heightened security following the wave of antisemitic violence unleashed after the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, he turned his attention to a visibly Jewish man outside. He also claimed the attack in the name of ISIS.

Despite all that, the youth, who is now 17, was sentenced Tuesday to one year in prison, which was then commuted to mandatory therapy in a youth care facility.

“Killing Jews simply because they are Jews is unscrupulous,” the judge wrote in the summary of the case.

Local Jewish leaders were outraged by the sentence the youth received for a crime that is better described as “heinous,” arguing that the sentence does not match the seriousness of the crime.