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This week, the 'Exit Internationalist' newsletter is devoted entirely to this weekend's report about the Sarco by De Volkskrant newspaper in the Netherlands.
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Their long-read is titled 'The Mists surrounding the Sarco: A reconstruction full of ethical dilemmas, political beliefs and legal conundrums'.
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The investigation team are: Maud Effting, Haro Kraak and Eric Verwiel.
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By way of introduction the newspaper writes:
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De Volkskrant has been investigating the case over the past months in the Netherlands and Switzerland, and is basing its findings on conversations with 25 individuals and experts involved, an audio recording, video footage, legal documents, on-site observations, emails and app messages.
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The below is an edited version of their report.
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To avoid copyright infringement, the photos have been sourced from the Exit archive.
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Florian Willet wonders where they are. It has been almost an hour and a half since the authorities were called.
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The 47-year-old German is standing on a dirt road in the woods near Schaffhausen, a Swiss canton bordering Germany.
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It is Monday evening, September 23, and dusk is setting in. He waits, and he can only think of one thing.
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Behind him in the woods lies a dead woman. Willet watched her die. He was the only one there ...
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Willet feels relieved. He believes everything went well. The woman was calm, he will say later, everything went according to plan. “It was clear that she wanted this.”
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In a blue folder under his arm, he carries the money she left behind for her funeral expenses.
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A little after six pm, a Volkskrant photographer arrives at the location. The police are still not there, almost an hour and a half after the call.
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But shortly thereafter, things move quickly. A convoy of police cars speeds up the Swiss hills, and officers detain everyone near the Sarco.
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Willet, the two lawyers, and the Volkskrant photographer are locked up in police cells.
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Later, they are transported to prisons.
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The public prosecutor detains the lawyers and the photographer for 48 hours, which is highly unusual in Western, democratic countries when it comes to lawyers and journalists.
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During interrogations, the four are told that they are all suspected of inciting suicide and providing assistance in doing so.
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But the Swiss prosecutor also has another possible suspicion, which he has not yet disclosed to the public.
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It’s a suspicion known in Switzerland as ‘vorsätzliche Tötung’, which is translated in English as intentional homicide.
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May 2024
‘This is the nervous part’, Fiona Stewart says.
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Today, Nitschke will test his machine live in a Rotterdam workshop by lying in it himself. About fifteen people are watching.
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Among them are a few journalists and documentary makers. Nitschke, dressed in a bright pink blouse, looks focused and introspective ...
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It is certainly not without risk. Yet the doctor, looking fearless, straps an oxygen mask with elastic bands around his nose and mouth. He steps into his own capsule and pulls the lid shut. Click. There he lies, ready for the test.
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The oxygen bottle rests on his lap. In the workshop, everyone falls silent. ‘Is the oxygen on?’ Stewart asks. Nitschke nods calmly from behind the perspex window.
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Suddenly, the capsule fills with white mist—a sign that cold nitrogen is flowing in. The meters show the oxygen level plummeting.
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Within sixty seconds, it drops from 20.9 to 0.4 percent; humans cannot survive below 10 percent.
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Stewart rushes to the Sarco. ‘Are you all right?’ she asks. The stress is palpable.
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He talks about the endless list of problems they struggled with.
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He has been worried for months about the oxygen level in the Sarco: will it stay close to zero long enough?
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‘No’, he says. ‘I have tested the Sarco more than thirty times now. The oxygen level drops the same way every time. We have to trust the science.’
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He is silent for a moment.
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‘This death’, he says, 'will be scrutinized under a microscope. Everything must be ultra-clear.'
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Ending up in Schaffhausen, an extremely conservative corner of the country, was not planned, says Nitschke. They were lucky to find a spot.
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‘We searched half the planet for landowners in Switzerland who were willing to do this.’
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The Sarco is now on private land owned by a man who wishes to remain anonymous.
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Willet is a lawyer, behavioral economist, and member of Mensa, the international association of highly intelligent people. He is a gentle, modest man.
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In April this year, he joined the board of The Last Resort.
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His life story is remarkable: his own father ended his life when he was 14. He is still surprised by the psychiatrist who told him at the time that this was a selfish act. As a child, he understood his fathers decision.
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‘I was extremely sad because I loved my father’, he said in the media. ‘But it would have been very selfish of me if I had expected him to live longer for me. Then he would have had to suffer longer.’
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Florian Willet (more)
Before this, he [Willet] was spokesperson for Dignitas, one of the Swiss assisted suicide organizations, for many years. Do these clubs feel threatened?
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The Last Resort has sharply criticized the high prices for foreigners. ‘There is no moral mandate to charge 10,000 Swiss francs or more for assistance in a peaceful and reliable suicide’, Willet stated on the site.
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‘Look’, Willet says sitting by the campfire. ‘These kinds of organizations start idealistically. But eventually, they grow into institutions with twenty, thirty employees. Gradually, you become more cautious.
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'Your perspective changes. And in the end, you are not an idealist who can go to prison any time for his convictions.'
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‘So yeah’, he says, ‘they are not happy with us.’
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De Volkskrant asked the American woman for an interview, but the woman let Stewart know that this would be too stressful, so close to her death.
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However, she wants to briefly tell her story now. On the recording, the woman gives permission to provide her statement to the Swiss authorities and to De Volkskrant.
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“How long have you been considering taking this step?” asks Stewart.
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‘For at least two years’, the woman says. ‘Since I was diagnosed with skull base osteomyelitis.’
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Stewart: ‘How does it feel to be the first person to use the Sarco?’
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She is a little hesitant, she says, but she ‘understands the concept behind the plastic bag and nitrogen’.
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The Sarco can be seen as a variant of this. ‘If people have died this way before, I cannot see why this wouldn’t work’, she says. ‘Scientifically, it makes sense.’
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Lobby Against the Sarco
After it was leaked that the Sarco was coming, critical pieces continued to appear in the Swiss media all summer long.
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She is a member of the national-conservative SVP, the largest party in parliament, and is annoyed by the increasing ‘suicide tourism’ in her country.
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Stopping It
In publications, The Last Resort is portrayed as an organization that acts recklessly.
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Yet, in an attempt at transparency, The Last Resort actually contacted the authorities early on, as evidenced by documents in possession of de Volkskrant.
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In May, their lawyers informed the Schaffhausen Public Prosecutor of their intention to use the Sarco. The prosecutor responded in July that a criminal investigation would then be opened.
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This does not seem to worry the lawyers: this always happens after assisted suicide.
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Meanwhile, the regulator Swissmedic announces that it does not see the capsule as a medical instrument, so the Sarco does not need to undergo a safety test.
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Moreover, nitrogen is not classified as a medicinal drug: the gas has no pharmacological effect on the body; it simply displaces the oxygen in the air.
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But at the exact moment the American woman is getting ready in the forest on Monday, September 23, Minister of Home Affairs Elisabeth Baume-Schneider suddenly responds to the questions of parliament member Fehr Düsel.
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The minister sees new ways to stop the Sarco, although these are contradicted by lawyers.
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According to her, the Sarco does not meet the ‘product safety’ requirements. She also states that the nitrogen would not be used according to the rules of the Chemicals Act.
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These are remarkably firm words, but they are no longer heard in time by those to whom they are addressed. Because when the minister speaks those words, it is 14:35.
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Monday 23 September
To the outside world, the case so far revolves only around assisted suicide. But with that, the prosecution has no strong case, according to Bernhard Rütsche, a professor of legal philosophy at the University of Lucerne who regularly publishes on euthanasia and is often asked as an expert.
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Rütsche, who knows nothing about ‘intentional homicide’ at that time, judges harshly:
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‘The mere fact that assisted suicide was carried out with a suicide capsule does not justify an arrest,’ he says to de Volkskrant.
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‘There is neither a sufficiently clear legal basis nor a judicial precedent according to which the use of the death capsule would itself be punishable.’
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According to Rütsche, the Sarco exposes the weakness of the Swiss system ...
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Politicians have been avoiding to formulate sensible additional legislation for years, says Rütsche. ‘The Sarco is now exposing that.’
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A possible lawsuit against the Sarco is expected to revolve around this question: were there selfish motives involved? According to The Last Resort, they earn nothing from the Sarco: the user only pays their own expenses and about 19 euros for the nitrogen.
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But: ‘Not only financial but also affective reasons can indicate selfishness’, the prosecutor from Schaffhausen recently said in the Frankfurter Allgemeine.
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Affective reasons can include revenge or hatred, but also something else, he says: ‘For example, when someone documents their actions well and brings extra journalists from the Netherlands for that.’
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... In the Swiss newspaper Beobachter, Christopher Geth, a professor of criminal law at the University of Basel, says: ‘I doubt whether courts would label euthanasia activism like that of the Sarco inventors as selfish behavior.’
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Vagueness & Mysteries
The big question is why the prosecution raises the suspicion of ‘intentional homicide’.
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In court, the prosecutor has suggested in recent weeks that the woman may have been strangled.
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Documents show that this is based on a ‘phone note’ from September 23, a few hours after the woman’s death.
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During that conversation, the prosecution reportedly heard from the forensic doctor that the woman had, among other things, severe injuries to her neck.
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This suspicion, mentioned in various judicial documents, is still surrounded by vagueness and mysteries.
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Where is the official autopsy report that should shed light on the cause of death?
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None of the suspects’ lawyers have seen this report, five weeks after the fact – very unusual in a criminal case.
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And why does the prosecutor in Schaffhausen not go public with the ‘intentional homicide’ suspicion while this has already been presented to the judge to keep Willet in detention longer?
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Chief Prosecutor Peter Sticher of Schaffhausen does not want to answer any questions from de Volkskrant due to the ongoing investigation.
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He also does not want any accusations or facts from this article to be presented to him. ‘If the facts are correct, that’s fine, and if they are not, they didn’t come from me’, he says.
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Sticher also does not want to comment on the questionable reputation of the ‘leitender Staatsanwalt’, prosecutor Andreas Zuber, who is reportedly involved in the case.
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According to Swiss media, Zuber was suspended as a prosecutor by the Federal Court in another canton in 2015: in a major murder case, he reportedly committed ‘numerous and sometimes flagrant procedural error’s’, according to the suspension order.
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Zuber then became a suspect in a criminal case in which he was accused of document forgery and multiple abuses of office.
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Ready to Go
What happened to the woman on Monday, September 23, in the forest of Schaffhausen?
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Footage from two surveillance cameras, which are in possession of this newspaper, shows what was visible in the hours surrounding her death.
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One camera was installed inside the Sarco and was aimed at the control button, while the other was mounted outside on a tree and was directed at the Sarco.
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Both cameras, which also recorded sound, did not film continuously but captured footage when there were clear movements.
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As a result, there are gaps between the fragments.
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The newspaper investigated the way the camera’s work, analyzed the footage, compared the timelines, and found no indications of tampering, although this can never be completely ruled out.
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It is unknown whether the Swiss police is in possession of the footage.
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Notable Event
Around two minutes, something notable happens, which may be explained by a severe cramping of the body.
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At 1 minute and 57 seconds and after 2 minutes and 13 seconds, the internal camera, which reacts to movement, turns on twice in quick succession.
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Due to the position of the internal camera, it is not exactly clear what happens.
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On the external camera, it is visible that precisely during this time span, a dark spot suddenly appears on the inside of the fogged-up window, at the height of her knees.
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This may be the effect of a body part touching the window.
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Later, Willet tells the police in his interrogation that her body seemed to cramp strongly around an estimated two and a half minutes – a frequently described reaction in suicides involving nitrogen ...
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At 4:04 PM, he reports that the woman has not moved for about two minutes. Half an hour after pressing the button, Willet summarizes to Nitschke, who could only partially follow the process due to technical problems, how the woman has died.
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‘She had her eyes closed’, he says. ‘And she was breathing very deeply. Then the breathing slowed down. And then it stopped.’
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‘She really looks dead’, Willet says.
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At 5:04 PM, Willet is last seen near the Sarco. At no point in the footage is it visible that he opens the lid or intervenes in any other way.
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At 6:48 PM – it is already dark by then – the first detective in a white suit is visible near the Sarco via infrared images.
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At 7:22 PM, both cameras turn on almost simultaneously: a detective opens the Sarco for the first time.
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