Controversial suicide capsule applications suspended amid investigation
Advocacy groups behind the suicide capsule have suspended the process of taking applications amid a criminal investigation into its first use in Switzerland.
In a statement on Sunday, they said that 371 people were “in the process of applying” to use the device, known as the Sarco, as of September 23 and applications were suspended after its first use.
The Sarco capsule is designed to allow the person inside to push a button that injects nitrogen gas from a tank underneath into the sealed chamber, allowing the person to fall asleep and then die of suffocation in a few minutes.
On September 23, an unidentified 64-year-old woman from the US Midwest, became the first person to use the device in a forest in the northern Schaffhausen region.
The president of Switzerland-based The Last Resort, Florian Willet, said at the time that the woman's death was "peaceful, fast, and dignified", although those claims could not be independently verified.
On the same day as the woman's death, Swiss Health Minister Elisabeth Baume-Schneider told parliament that use of the Sarco would not be legal.
Willet and several others were taken into custody following her death and prosecutors opened an investigation on suspicion of incitement and accessory to suicide.
Willet is currently being held in pretrial detention, according to The Last Resort and Exit International, an affiliate founded in Australia over a quarter-century ago. The others who were detained were released from custody.
Exit International also clarified that their lawyers in Switzerland believed the use of the device is legal.
“Only after the Sarco was used was it learned that Ms Baume-Schneider had addressed the issue,” the advocacy groups said in the statement Sunday.
“The timing was a pure coincidence and not our intention.”
Switzerland has some of the most permissive laws when it comes to assisted suicide, but the first use of the Sarco has prompted debate among lawmakers.
Laws in the country permit assisted suicide, as long as the person takes their own life with no “external assistance” and those who help the person die do not do so for “any self-serving motive”.
Image: Exit International