Court clears doctor of alleged assisted suicide crimes
A Swiss doctor has been cleared of illegally administering lethal doses of medicine to an elderly woman who wanted to die.
Retired doctor Pierre Beck, a former regional vice president of assisted suicide group Exit, helped a healthy 86-year-old woman who wanted to die alongside her ill husband. Beck provided the woman with a lethal dose of the sedative and preanesthetic pentobarbital.
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In 2019 Beck was found guilty of breaking the federal law on medicinal products and given a suspended 120-day jail sentence.
Two years later, the Federal Court overturned the original verdict, but sent the case back to the cantonal court of Geneva.
The Geneva court ruled on Monday that no crime had been committed when the doctor administered pentobarbital to the woman.
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“The mere fact of a physician prescribing pentobarbital to a person in good health, capable of discernment and wishing to die, does not constitute behavior punishable by the law on narcotics,” the court wrote in the judgement seen by Swiss public broadcaster RTS.
Prosecutors have 30 days to appeal the verdict to the Federal Court, but have not yet decided if they will take this action, according to RTS.
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