Dignitas founder Ludwig Minelli dies at 92

Dignitas founder Ludwig A. Minelli dies at the age of 92 Keystone-SDA

Ludwig Minelli, the founder of Dignitas, passed away on November 30 in an assisted suicide procedure, shortly before his 93rd birthday. The euthanasia organisation said it would continue to develop the association in line with its founder’s wishes.

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Dignitas announced on Sunday that its founder had “chosen to end his life”. Minelli founded the association in 1998. The lawyer campaigned for his assisted suicide organisation for decades and appeared in court several times as a result.

In one case, Dignitas failed before the Swiss Federal Court with a demand to be allowed to bury urns commercially outside of cemeteries. The court upheld the ban, which dates back to a macabre discovery in Lake Zurich in 2010.

At the time, employees of the Küsnacht lake rescue service discovered numerous urns containing human ashes at the bottom of the lake. A total of 67 urns had been sunk in Lake Zurich. The canton described this form of mass burial as ‘unacceptable’.

Minelli, a lawyer himself, was a tough fighter, Dignitas wrote on Sunday. For years he sat unwaveringly in the dock and campaigned for self-determined dying.

Translated from German by DeepL/dos

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