In an unprecedented case, three Belgian doctors are going on trial in Ghent accused of unlawfully poisoning a patient whose life they helped to end.
Tine Nys, 38, died surrounded by her family on 27 April 2010.
Her sisters argue that her death should never have been allowed under Belgium’s euthanasia law, and that it was achieved in an amateurish manner.
Euthanasia and assisted suicide were made legal under strict conditions in Belgium in 2002.
Nys’s family argue that her reason for seeking to end her life was because of a failed relationship, far short of the “serious and incurable disorder” as required under Belgian law.
The three doctors from East Flanders who are going on trial have not been named, but they include the doctor who carried out the lethal injection and Nys’s former doctor and a psychiatrist. If found guilty they could face long jail terms.
A similar first took place in the Dutch courts last year, when a doctor was cleared of failing to check the consent of a 74-year-old woman with dementia who died in 2016.
Read the full story at BBC News…