In Switzerland, Reported Use of Suicide Capsule Inflames Debate

Europe|In Switzerland, Reported Use of Suicide Capsule Inflames Debate

The authorities in northern Switzerland said they were investigating a reported assisted suicide using a controversial device that replaces oxygen with lethal nitrogen gas.

A 64-year-old American was reported to have died by assisted suicide in a remote forest in northern Switzerland with the help of two right-to-die groups that facilitated her use of a Sarco capsule, a coffin-sized, air-tight pod with a large window, according to the capsule’s inventor. The device, which can be transported to a location of a user’s choosing, has an interior button that replaces life-giving oxygen with fatal nitrogen, killing the person in minutes. The inventor of the device said it was the first time it had been used.

The capsule was used on Monday in a remote, mountainous area north of Zurich, near the German border. The woman was said to have suffered for years from an autoimmune condition, the manufacturers of the pod said.

“I monitored the first use of the device from Germany and was pleased with the peaceful, fast death that resulted when the button was pressed,” said Philip Nitschke, the inventor of the Sarco capsule and founder of Exit International, the assisted-suicide group that provided the device to a similar group in Switzerland.

Now, the authorities in the canton of Schaffhausen said they had arrested “several people” who may have helped the woman die. Among the detained were two lawyers, a photographer for the Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant, and Florian Willet, the director of the Last Resort, a group that facilitates assisted suicide in Switzerland. Mr. Willet was the only person present when the woman died, Mr. Nitschke said. He then contacted two lawyers, who informed the authorities of her death.

The authorities said they were detaining the individuals on charges of “incitement and aiding and abetting suicide.”