Overview

• Prosecutors said the Indian national assaulted a 15-year-old seated next to him during a nine-hour Mumbai–Zurich flight, with the indictment describing the victim entering a state of shock.
• In Bülach District Court, the defendant confessed and was found guilty of rape and sexual acts with a child.
• The conviction drew on Switzerland’s year-old “no means no” reform, which recognizes refusal expressed by words, gestures or a shocked state.
• He received an 18-month suspended sentence that he will not serve because he has been in custody since March, and the judge called the punishment barely appropriate.
• Sanctions include a five-year entry ban, a lifetime bar on work involving regular contact with minors, roughly CHF 9,000 in costs partly covered by confiscated funds, and transfer to the Migration Office for deportation; Swiss International Air Lines said crew moved the girl, monitored the suspect and alerted police, who arrested him on landing.