Police in Switzerland have arrested several people after the controversial “Sarco” capsule, designed to allow its occupant to commit suicide, was used for the first time, authorities said this week.
Reuters reports that the capsule was deployed in the woods in the municipality of Merishausen on Monday.
Prosecutors have opened criminal proceedings against several people for “inducing and aiding and abetting suicide”, and several people were detained.
A spokesperson for the group behind the capsule, The Last Resort, said the deceased was a 64-year-old American woman who had been suffering from a severely compromised immune system.
Florian Willet, co-president of The Last Resort, was among the four detainees, along with a Dutch journalist and two Swiss people, a police spokesperson said.
Willet was apparently the only other person present when the woman ended her life.
A spokesperson for The Last Resort said the woman had passed psychiatric evaluations before ending her life.
The “Sarco” causes death when its occupant releases nitrogen gas inside, lowering the amount of oxygen to lethal levels. It is the brainchild of Philip Nitschke, an Australian physician famous for his work on assisted suicide since the 1990s.
Assisted suicide is legal in Switzerland, and The Last Resort says its legal advice was that it could be deployed.
However, Elisabeth Baume-Schneider, the Swiss Minister for health, said on Monday that the capsule does not meet the requirements of product safety law, and that its use of nitrogen is not legally compliant.
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
Why liberal Switzerland is opposing Sarco suicide capsule
Euthanasia ‘pod’ ready for use, says inventor