The Hague, Sept 29 (AFP/APP):Dutch authorities on Wednesday arrested the chief of a right-to-die campaign group on suspicion of involvement in assisted suicide, prosecutors and his group said.
Jos van Wijk leads the Last Will Cooperative (CLW), which campaigns for the right for people to end their life without the involvement of doctors or officials.
The Netherlands in 2002 became the first country in the world to legalise euthanasia and assisted suicide, but only if aided by a doctor.
“A 73-year-old man from Apeldoorn was arrested on Wednesday on suspicion of involvement in assisted suicide,” Dutch prosecutors said, without naming him.
The suspect’s home in the central town of Apeldoorn and another property elsewhere in the Netherlands were searched on Tuesday, they said in a statement.
“The man is specifically suspected of participating in a criminal organisation whose object is to commit and/or plan the crime of assisted suicide.”
The campaign group confirmed that van Wijk had been arrested.
“The CLW regrets that the Public Prosecution Service has decided to arrest its chairman,” it said in an emailed statement to AFP.
“Since its inception in 2013, the CLW has consciously acted within the law.”
The group said it aimed to make it “possible within the applicable law that citizens can end their own lives in a dignified and safe manner, whenever they wish”.
Dutch media said a member of the Last Will Cooperative from the southern city of Eindhoven had been arrested in July in connection with the deaths of at least six people who were allegedly supplied with “suicide powder”.
The group halted home meetings of its members after the arrest due to fears they were being used to set up deals to buy the drugs, public broadcaster NOS said.
Dutch law sets out strict rules for euthanasia and assisted suicide. The patient has to be lucid when making the request and experiencing unbearable suffering from a condition diagnosed as incurable by at least two doctors.
Euthanasia can be carried out by a doctor administering a fatal dose of an approved drug, while patients can administer the drug as long as a doctor supplie
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