Dignitas founder dies by assisted suicide aged 92, group says

2 hours agoImogen Foulkes,GenevaandTom BennettThe founder of the Swiss right-to-die organisation Dignitas has died by assisted suicide, the group says.Ludwig Minelli, 92, died on Saturday, days before his 93rd birthday.The group paid tribute to Minelli, saying he had led a "life for freedom of choice, self-determination, and human rights".Minelli founded Dignitas in 1998, and since then it has helped thousands of people to die. In recent decades, some countries have shifted their stance on assisted dying, with Australia, Canada and New Zealand introducing laws. The UK House of Lords is currently debating the assisted dying bill. Critics of the legalisation say it could see disabled and vulnerable people being coerced into ending their lives.Minelli began his career as a journalist, working as a correspondent for the German news magazine Der Spiegel, before studying law and taking an interest in human rights.Across his life, he campaigned passionately for the right to die, giving Dignitas the slogan "dignity in life, dignity in death". In a 2010 interview with the BBC, he said: "I am persuaded that we have to struggle in order to implement the last human right in our societies. And the last human right is the right to make a decision on one's own end, and the possibility to have this end without risk and without pain."Minelli founded Dignitas after splitting from the older Swiss assisted dying organisation, Exit, because he felt its rules were too restrictive. The group became world famous because it offers assisted suicide to non-Swiss citizens who travel to Switzerland because assisted dying is not permitted in their own countries.Within Switzerland he was sometimes criticised for an alleged lack of transparency over the financial dealings of the organisation, and for offering assisted dying to those who were not terminally ill, but who wanted to end their lives.He faced numerous legal challenges, and made multiple successful appeals to the Swiss supreme courtIn a statement, Dignitas said his work had had a lasting influence, pointing to a 2011 ruling by the European Court of Human Rights, in which it confirmed the right of a person capable of judgement to decide on the manner and the time of their own end of life.Euthanasia - when a lethal drug is administered by a physician to deliberately end a person's life to relieve suffering - is illegal in Switzerland.But assisted dying has been permitted under Swiss law since 1942, under strict conditions including a stipulation that there is no profit motive involved, and that the individual wishing to die is of sound mind.Dignitas said in a statement that it would continue to "manage and develop the association in the spirit of its founder as a professional and combative international organisation for self-determination and freedom of choice in life and at the end of life".If you've been affected by issues in this article, help and support is available via the BBC Action Line.