Case closed on assisted suicide
No one implicated in death of euthanasia campaigner Chantal Sébire, who suffered from an incurable facial tumour
AN INVESTIGATION into the assisted suicide of a women with an incurable brain tumour which disfigured her face has been closed a year after her death.
Fifty-two-year-old mother Chantal Sébire lost a legal battle for the right to die by euthanasia in March 2008 as the tumour destroyed her sight, hearing, taste and became increasingly painful.
Days later on March 19, 2008 was found dead at her home in Plombières in the Côte d’Or having taken a “fatal dose” of the drug barbiturate.
An investigation to find out who supplied the drug, which cannot be bought from the pharmacy, was opened in June but has now been closed with no charges.
The public prosecutor of Dijon said: “Numerous investigations have brought forward no information – no one, be it family members, doctors, the lawyer of Mrs Sébire – and no laboratory has been implicated.”
Anyone charged in connection with the assisting Mrs Sébire’s death could have faced three years in prison and a fine of up to €45,000.
Mrs Sébire’s ordeal was given much coverage in the media, stirring strong public opinion and relaunching the debate on euthanasia.
The government rexamined the law however a “right to die” was never passed.
According to her lawyer Gilles Antonowicz, Mrs Sébire was standing up against “legal madness,” as she had always made known her wish to die.
Photo:Afp
