Habte Araya, the 40-year-old Eritrean-born resident of Switzerland detained by police for pushing a 40-year-old woman and her eight-year-old son in front of an approaching high speed train in Frankfurt on Monday morning, was featured in a 2017 Swiss labour agency brochure as a case of the successful integration of foreigners in Swiss society, the Daily Mail has reported.
Excerpts from the annual report showed Araya on its front cover working as a fitter for the Zurich transport authority. He appeared several more times throughout the brochure, shown in training and sitting with an employment counsellor.
He was also profiled by the agency as an example of successful integration.
“When I first came [to Switzerland], communication was difficult because of the language. But that is no longer the case. I like the fact that everyone is helped here regardless of whether they are rich or poor,” Araya was quoted as saying.
In fact, the man said he liked “almost everything about Switzerland,” with the employment agency saying Araya planned to spend the next 25 years working at the transport authority before retiring.
“I want a better and easier life for my children than I had,” he noted. Araya reportedly has three children of his own.
But Araya’s plans came crashing down this week after the prosecutor’s office in Frankfurt, Germany opened a murder and double attempted murder probe against him following Monday’s events, in which the man inexplicably pushed a mother and her 8-year-old son onto the tracks in front of a high-speed ICE train, killing the boy instantly and leaving the mother with injuries. A second women, 78, was also injured after Araya allegedly tried to push her in front of the tracks as well. Araya fled the scene, but was caught by other passengers and held down until police arrived.
No traces of drugs or alcohol were found in the suspect’s blood, with German authorities now planning a psychiatric assessment. Prosecutors said that they have yet to determine a motive, with Araya and his victims appearing not to know one another.
On Wednesday, Swiss media reported that Araya was wanted by police in Zurich after an incident last Thursday in which he reportedly locked his wife and child, and a neighbour in their family apartment, and threatened another neighbour verbally and with a knife before fleeing.
Swiss police immediately shot down suspicions of Islamist radicalization, saying they had uncovered “no evidence of radicalization or ideological motive” in last week’s incident. Swiss authorities also said Araya had been suffering from psychological problems, and that he had undergone treatment earlier this year.
Araya arrived in Switzerland in 2006, and was granted a residence permit in Switzerland. Switzerland is home to over 30,000 Eritreans, with the mountainous landlocked country containing one of the largest registered diasporas of Eritreans anywhere in the world. Eritrea has faced several wars with neighbouring Ethiopia, and broke off from the country in the early 1990s. The vast majority of the country’s estimated 5 million residents practice Sunni Islam.