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Assisted suicide probed
21/09/2003 18:32 - (SA)
Zurich - Swiss police are investigating whether the death by suicide of a 76-year-old Frenchman suffering from Alzheimer's disease was legally a case of murder, a local newspaper reported on Sunday.
The man, who had been accompanied to Zurich by his wife, died in June, and was reported to have been in contact with the Dignitas association which helps people take their own lives.
Assisting a suicide in Switzerland is legal only if the individual who wishes to die has all his mental faculties.
"For me and the coroner the alarm bell has been rung," Andreas Brunner, the examining magistrate said, cited by the weekly SonntagsZeitung.
"You can ask whether he was capable of making a judgment."
Ludwig Minelli, a supporter of Dignitas, argued that the fact of Alzheimer's being diagnosed did not necessarily mean that the patient had lost all his or her faculties of judgement, the weekly said.
Police figures show that between January and the beginning of August 49 foreigners came to Switzerland to die with the help of Dignitas, the largest number from Germany (27), but with others coming from the United States and Israel. Dignitas also helped one Swiss national to die.
The statistics show a sharp rise in people seeking the association's help: there were 55 in the whole of 2002, three in 2000. Its membership has grown, from 447 to 2 263.
Assisted suicide takes the form of providing the person wishing to die with a fatal dose, including barbiturates, prescribed by a doctor. The individual has to swallow the drugs without the aid of another party and there is a set procedure involving the police, lawyers and coroners after each death to ensure that the law has been respected.
- AFP
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