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75-year-old woman who killed seven-year-old boy in Basel did not know victim

A 75-year-old woman who confessed to the murder by stabbing of a seven-year-old boy in the Swiss city of Basel on Thursday is currently undergoing psychiatric evaluation.

75-year-old woman who killed seven-year-old boy in Basel did not know victim
The woman who confessed to the murder is a Basel resident. File photo: Depositphotos

The woman turned herself in to state prosecutors after the murder in the city’s Gotthelf neighbourhood.

She did not know her victim or his family, prosecutors in Basel-Stadt said in a statement on Friday.

Read also: Woman, 75, held over fatal stabbing of 7-year-old boy in Basel

Forensic investigations revealed she killed the boy with a serious knife injury to the neck.

The motive for the murder is not known.

The 75-year-old woman, a Swiss national, is currently being held in investigative custody but there doubts about her legal culpability, prosecutors said. She is undergoing psychiatric evaluation.

The family of the murdered seven-year-old boy was from Kosovo and he is to be buried there after his body is released by investigators, Swiss media reported.

The boy’s murder has shocked the local community in Basel and captured headlines across Switzerland.

The child was attacked while he was walking alone home from school at around 12:30 pm on Thursday.

The boy's teacher found him lying on the ground in a serious condition and called for an ambulance. Despite efforts to resuscitate him, he was declared dead at the hospital, police said.

Flowers and candles have been placed at the spot where he was killed.

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CRIME

Mystery persists as missing Swiss paintings reappear

One of the Switzerland's top art museums announced Sunday the return of two paintings that went missing last year, refusing to provide details in a case still under investigation.

Mystery persists as missing Swiss paintings reappear

Kunsthaus Zurich offered in June 2023 a reward of 10,000 Swiss francs ($11,100) for information that could help it track one painting by Flemish painter Robert van den Hoecke and another by the Dutch Golden Age artist Dirck de Bray.

The small paintings disappeared when the Kunsthaus took down more than 700 works for cleaning and restoration after a fire broke out in August 2022.

But no trace of the two paintings could later be found.

On Sunday, the museum said only that its restoration experts had confirmed both paintings were in “good condition”, with no indication of how or when they turned up.

Because of ongoing police inquiries, “no further information will be released for the time being,” the Kunsthaus said.

Museum officials had alerted the missing works to the Art Loss Register, the world’s largest database of lost and stolen pieces.

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