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Schaffhausen public prosecutor, Peter Sticher, confirmed the request for pre-trial detention to Keystone-SDA on Thursday. He did not provide any further details, such as the number of people arrested. The competent court has up to 48 hours to process the application.
+ Why liberal Switzerland opposes the Sarco suicide pod
The public prosecutor’s office initiated criminal proceedings against those arrested for inciting or aiding and abetting suicide.
Circles within the organisation behind Sarco, ‘The Last Resort’, reported this week that four people had been arrested. In addition to co-president Florian Willet, two lawyers and a Dutch photographer are said to have been arrested.
On Monday, Sticher was informed by a lawyer that the suicide capsule had been used in a forest near Merishausen. The emergency services were immediately deployed, seized the capsule and took the deceased to Zurich for an autopsy.
American woman, 64, died
According to the euthanasia organisation ‘The Last Resort’, a 64-year-old American woman took her own life in the capsule. She had been suffering from the consequences of an immune deficiency for many years. Sarco worked as planned and brought the woman a drug-free death.
The Last Resort announced in the summer that the death capsule would be used in Switzerland this year. The public prosecutor’s offices of several cantons then announced that they would initiate proceedings if the capsule was used in their cantons – including Schaffhausen.
At exactly the same time as Sarco was first used in the Merishausen forest, Health Minister Elisabeth Baume-Schneider said during question time in parliament that the suicide capsule was not legally compliant.
