UPDATE
Dec 2, 2024 3:14 PM CST
Swiss prosecutors said a right-to-die activist was released Monday after more than two months in police custody over the first use of a so-called "suicide capsule," after they ruled out the possibility of an intentional homicide. Florian Willet, head of advocacy group the Last Resort, was released by authorities in the northern Schaffhausen region, per the AP. Though homicide charges are off the table, Willet may yet face lesser charges of "inciting and abetting suicide."
Nov 24, 2024 9:43 AM CST
The right-to-die activist behind a new "suicide capsule" says he rejects "absurd" allegations that the US woman who was its first user may have actually been strangled, per the AP. Philip Nitschke of advocacy group Exit International says he wasn't on hand for the woman's death on Sept. 23 involving the "Sarco" capsule in Switzerland, but saw it live by video transmission. The device worked as planned, he said, in the first and only time it has been used. The head of a Swiss affiliate of Exit International known as The Last Resort, Florian Willet, was present at the woman's death and was immediately taken into police custody.
Nitschke said prosecutors have asked for an extension of Willet's detention, "claiming there was now evidence of homicide." He denied the accusation. On Oct. 26, the Swiss newspaper Volkskrant reported the prosecutor indicated in court that the woman may have been strangled. "It is absurd because we've got film that the capsule wasn't opened," Nitschke said. "Everything happened exactly as we had predicted. The woman climbed into the Sarco alone, closed the lid without help and pressed the button that released the nitrogen herself. She lost consciousness and died after about six minutes."
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He added that Willet held a mobile phone through which Nitschke watched live video of the woman using the Sarco, and informed the police immediately afterward that she had died. Swiss law allows assisted suicide so long as the person takes his or her life with no "external assistance" and those who help the person die do not do so for "any self-serving motive," according to a government website. The 64-year-old woman was not identified. Nitschke, a medical doctor, said she had "compromised immune function" that made her "subject to chronic infection." If you or someone you know needs help, the national suicide and crisis lifeline is available by calling or texting 988.
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