'Suicide Pod' Suspended Amid Switzerland's Investigation Over US Woman's Death

Berne: Weeks after an unidentified 64-year-old woman from the US Midwest died using the suicide capsule 'Sarco,' advocacy groups announced the suspension of applications for its use—previously exceeding 370 last month—pending the completion of a criminal investigation into its initial deployment in Switzerland.

Florian Willet, the president of The Last Resort, a Switzerland-based organization, is currently in pretrial detention, according to the group and Exit International, an affiliate established in Australia over 25 years ago.

Swiss police arrested Willet and several others following the death of the woman, who became the first person to use the device known as the “Sarco” on September 23 in a forest in the northern Schaffhausen region near the German border.

Authorities have informed that the other individuals initially detained have been released from custody.

Switzerland has some of the most permissive laws in the world when it comes to assisted suicide, though the first use of the Sarco has prompted a debate among lawmakers.

Laws in the rich Alpine country permit assisted suicide so long as the person takes his or her life with no “external assistance” and those who help the person die do not do so for “any self-serving motive.” The advocacy groups said in a statement Sunday that 371 people were “in the process of applying” to use the Sarco in Switzerland as of Sept. 23 and applications were suspended after its first use.

Exit International, whose founder Dr. Philip Nitschke is based in the Netherlands, is behind the 3D-printed device that cost over $1 million to develop.

The Sarco capsule is designed to allow a person sitting in a reclining seat inside to push a button that injects nitrogen gas from a tank underneath into the sealed chamber, allowing the person to fall asleep and then die by suffocation in a few minutes.

Exit International has said Willet was the only person present at the woman’s death, and described it as “peaceful, fast and dignified.” Those claims could not be independently verified.

On the same day as the woman died, Swiss Health Minister Elisabeth Baume-Schneider told parliament that use of the Sarco would not be legal. The woman was said to be suffering from severe immune compromise.

Exit says its lawyers in Switzerland believe use of the device is legal.

“Only after the Sarco was used was it learned that Ms. Baume-Schneider had addressed the issue,” the advocacy groups said in the statement Sunday. “The timing was a pure coincidence and not our intention.”

(With AP inputs)