A criminal case has been started in northern Switzerland after police say several people have been arrested and a person is thought to have died in a new “suicide capsule.”
Not a single person has ever used the “Sarco” suicide capsule, which has a button that releases nitrogen gas into a locked room. After this happens, the person should fall asleep and suffocate, dying a short time later.
Authorities in Schaffhausen canton were told by a law company that the Sarco capsule was used in an assisted suicide on Monday near a house in the forest in Merishausen. This was reported by police in a statement.
Authorities arrested “several people” and started a probe into allegations of suicide encouragement and help.
One of the photographers for the Dutch newspaper Volkskrant was held by cops on Tuesday because they wanted to take pictures of how the Sarco was used. It said that cops in Schaffhausen said the reporter was being held at a police station but wouldn’t say why.
When the AP called, the newspaper refused to say anything else.
The Dutch group Exit International, which helps people commit suicide, has said that it is behind the 3D-printed device that took more than a million dollars to make.
According to a government website, assisted suicide is legal in Switzerland as long as the person who seeks help does so without “external aid” and for “no self-serving purpose.”
The doctor behind Exit International, Dr. Philip Nitschke, who was born in Australia, told the AP that lawyers in Switzerland have told his group that using the Sarco would be allowed there.
In July, the Swiss newspaper Blick said that Peter Sticher, a state prosecutor in Schaffhausen, wrote to Exit International’s lawyers and said that anyone who used the suicide capsule could be charged with a crime and could face up to five years in prison if found guilty.
Attorneys general in other parts of Switzerland have also said that using the suicide capsule could lead to charges.
A 54-year-old U.S. woman with a number of health problems had planned to be the first person to use the device over the summer, but she changed her mind.
