In Switzerland, Reported Use of Suicide Capsule Inflames Debate

The Swiss police said they had detained “several individuals” after a 64-year-old American woman reportedly died by suicide using the controversial device.

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.”

The episode has drawn condemnation even in Switzerland, which has such permissible laws surrounding the practice that thousands of people across the world have sought help from right-to-die organizations there in recent years.

Although advocates of the Sarco capsule say it is compliant with Swiss law — and that users must be evaluated by medical professionals before they are approved for use — some officials and experts have decried it as inhumane and said it had not been tested sufficiently. The Swiss authorities said they warned its manufacturers that using the device in the country would be illegal.

“We warned them in writing. We said that if they came to Schaffhausen and used Sarco, they would face criminal consequences,” Peter Sticher, a prosecutor in Schaffhausen, the region of Switzerland where the device was used, told the newspaper Blick.

The emergence of the Sarco capsule, which has been criticized even by staunch advocates of the right-to-die movement, has challenged Switzerland’s stance on the subject. In an address before lawmakers on Monday — the same day that, unbeknown to the authorities, the capsule was being used by the American woman — the head of the country’s home affairs department said the device was not legal. The machine, she said, violated the Chemicals Act by using gas.

Swiss law requires that those seeking to end their lives visit with a doctor, who must confirm the person is mentally competent and has not been pushed toward the decision by anyone with ulterior motive. If confirmed, the doctor will then write a prescription for sodium pentobarbital, a type of sedative.

The Sarco (short for “sarcophagus”) capsule was invented by Mr. Nitschke, an Australian doctor who is a longtime advocate of assisted-dying procedures. The capsule is billed as a drug-free way for qualified, older people of sound mind to end their own lives. Once locked inside the capsule in a chosen location, a person can choose when to press a button, which injects nitrogen gas into the chamber.

On its website, the Last Resort advertises itself as the only organization in Switzerland with access to 3D-printed Sarco capsules, which are available to “qualified users” free of cost.

The police in Switzerland said they were made aware of the woman’s death by a law firm on Monday. The firm contacted the local prosecutor’s office in Schaffhausen and said that an assisted suicide had taken place that afternoon via the Sarco capsule in a forest hut in Merishausen, a mountainous municipality near the German border.

Asked to respond to reports of Mr. Willet’s arrest, the Last Resort referred to a statement posted on its website. “The Last Resort was acting at all times on the legal advice of their lawyers,” the statement said. “Legal advice since 2021 has consistently found that the use of Sarco in Switzerland would be lawful.”

Once notified, Swiss emergency responders reportedly arrived to the capsule, removed the body of the woman, and transported it to Institute of Forensic Medicine in Zurich, where an autopsy was to be performed.

Representatives from de Volkskrant did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

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