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Kevorkian released from prison
01/06/2007 21:14 - (SA)
Michigan - Jack Kevorkian, the retired pathologist dubbed "Dr Death" after claiming he had participated in at least 130 assisted suicides, left prison after eight years on Friday still believing people have the right to die.
Throughout the 1990s, Kevorkian challenged authorities to make his actions legal - or try to stop him.
He burned state orders against him and showed up at court in costume.
"You think I'm going to obey the law? You're crazy," he said in 1998 shortly before he was accused - and then convicted - of murder after injecting lethal drugs into Thomas Youk, 52, an Oakland County man suffering from Lou Gehrig's disease.
That conviction earned Kevorkian a 10- to 25-year sentence for second degree murder, but he earned time off his sentence for good behaviour.
On Friday, the 79-year-old, wearing a blue sweater, walked out of the Lakeland Correctional Facility, accompanied by his attorney, Mayer Morganroth.
He is expected to now move to Bloomfield Hills, just outside Detroit, where he will live with friends and resume the artistic and musical hobbies he missed while in prison.
Views 'have not changed'
His lawyer and friends have said he plans to live on a small pension and Social Security while doing some writing and making some speeches, although he said he does not expect them all to be on euthanasia or assisted suicide.
Kevorkian has promised never to help in another assisted suicide.
But Ruth Holmes, who has worked as his legal assistant and handled his correspondence while he was in prison, said his views on the subject have not changed.
"This should be a matter that is handled as a fundamental human right that is between the patient, the doctor, his family and his God," Holmes said of Kevorkian's beliefs.
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