The right-to-die activist behind the “Sarco” suicide capsule has rejected what he calls “absurd” allegations that the American woman who was its first user may have actually been strangled, saying that the device had worked as planned.
Philip Nitschke, MBBS, PhD, of advocacy group Exit International, said while he wasn’t present for the woman’s death on 23 September, involving the capsule in a forest in northern Switzerland, he saw it live by video transmission.
Florian Willet, PhD, the head of a Swiss affiliate of Exit International known as The Last Resort, was, however, present at the death and was immediately taken into police custody, where he remains as police investigate the case, reports Medpage Today.
Several other people, including a journalist in The Netherlands, where Nitschke lives, were initially taken into custody and prosecutors opened an investigation on suspicion of incitement and accessory to suicide. They were later released.
Australian-born Nitschke broke weeks of silence through an interview with Swiss newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung last week.
Speaking to the Associated Press by phone, he said he felt compelled to speak out because Exit International was “desperate” about the plight of Willet, who could remain behind bars for weeks or months until a possible trial.
He said prosecutors have asked for an extension of Willet’s detention, “claiming there was now evidence of homicide”.
He denied the accusation.
“We've got to try to do something … Florian has been stuck in prison now for about 58 days,” Nitschke said. He had offered to travel to Switzerland to speak to prosecutors and share video footage and oxygen-level data in the capsule at the time the woman died.
But prosecutors “have not accepted that suggestion”.
Swiss law allows assisted suicide as long as the person takes his or her life with no “external assistance”, and that those who help the person die do not do so for “any self-serving motive”, according to a government website.
Switzerland is among the only countries in the world to where foreigners can travel legally to end their lives and has various organisations dedicated to helping people kill themselves.
Nitschke has repeatedly said Exit International’s Swiss lawyers had advised that use of the capsule would be legal in that country.
The Sarco is designed to allow a person sitting in its reclining seat to push a button that injects nitrogen gas into the sealed chamber. The occupant is then supposed to fall unconscious and die by suffocation within minutes.
The 64-year-old woman was not identified. Nitschke, a trained medical doctor, said she had “compromised immune function” that made her "subject to chronic infection."
On 26 October, another publication had reported the Swiss prosecutor had indicated in court that the woman may have been strangled, and that one of its photographers, two lawyers, and Willet were originally detained on suspicion of inciting suicide and providing assistance in doing so.
“It is absurd because we’ve got film showing that the capsule wasn’t opened,” Nitschke said.
“Everything happened exactly as we had predicted. She 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.”
Willet held a mobile phone through which Nitschke watched a live video of the woman using the Sarco, and informed the police immediately afterward that she had died.
Swiss police have confiscated the Sarco device, but Nitschke said another was being produced.
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
Swiss police swoop after suicide pod used for first time
Why liberal Switzerland is opposing Sarco suicide capsule