Past of Sarco suicide pod president arrested in Switzerland revealed

Euthanasia campaigner Dr Florian Willet described the first death in the controversial Sarco pod on Monday as ‘peaceful, fast and dignified’.

Co-president of The Last Resort, the firm set up to operate the capsule, he is said to have been the only person to witness the 64-year-old American woman’s passing as she pushed a button to release nitrogen gas into the chamber.

It was the culmination of a lifetime of right-to-die advocacy for Willet, but almost immediately after, police arrived and arrested the 47-year-old, placing him and several others into custody, where he remains.

Prosecutors in the Swiss region of Schaffhausenthe, where the launch took place, confirmed yesterday that they had ‘opened criminal proceedings against several people for inducement and aiding and abetting suicide.’

The German-born campaigner, who describes himself as an economist and communication psychologist, previously worked as a media spokesperson for euthanasia clinic Dignitas, before joining The Last Resort.

Asked about what inspired his work in a recent interview, he described how he had thoughts of taking his own life at a young age, as well as how he dealt with his father’s suicide as a teenager.

Co-President of The Last Resort, Florian Willet (left), is seen with board member Fiona Stewart at a press conference in July

Philip Nitschke lies down in a ‘suicide pod’ known as ‘The Sarco’ in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, July 8, 2024

‘By the age of five I took my own dying by suicide into consideration,’ Willet revealed in an interview on YouTube.

‘And also, then, my father. He died by suicide when I was 14. Actually, I was completely fine with it.

‘I mean, I was extremely sad because I loved my father. But, I understood immediately my father, he wanted to do this because he was a rational person, which means that expecting from him to remain alive just because I need a father, would mean extending his suffering.’

‘This would be very selfish, this expectation from my side,’ he argued. ‘So I was completely fine with the situation. I dealt with it as a teenager.’

He said he was visited by a priest and a psychiatrist, who told him that his father’s death was ‘selfish’ because he should have stayed alive for his son.

‘Keeping my father alive just because I need him as a young person is like being on a farm using horses or animals to get the work done. Abusing a living being. It’s horrible,’ Willet said.

Willet, who said he was raised ‘completely atheistic’ slammed the ‘strange morality’ he said was created by Christianity and other religions.

A member of high-IQ society Mensa, he argues that his ‘logic’, as well as the importance he places on ’empathy’, has driven his thinking around the right-to-die.

Willet, who said he was raised ‘completely atheistic’ slammed the ‘strange morality’ created by religion

Australian doctor Philip Nitschke (R), founder of the euthanasia organization Exit International, speaks next to Florian Willet, co-president of the Last Resort organization

In July, as he presented Sarco to the world at a press conference, he told reporters: ‘I have compared all kinds of available options to die, self-determined, and there is no better way, in my eyes, for me, than just breathing air without oxygen, until you lose consciousness and you fall into a never-ending sleep.’ 

The Sarco is designed to allow the person inside to push a button that injects nitrogen gas into the sealed chamber. The person is then supposed to fall asleep and die by suffocation in a few minutes. 

Sarco’s inventor, Dr Philip Nitschke, claimed that the launch on Monday went ‘as expected’, telling Dutch media: ‘My guess is that she lost consciousness within two minutes and that she died after five minutes.’

Fiona Stewart, member of the Last Resort poses next to the Sarco suicide machine in July

In July, Willet said Switzerland was ‘by far the best place’ for the Sarco to be used, due to its ‘wonderful liberal system’. 

Swiss law generally allows assisted suicide if the person commits the lethal act themselves.

But interior minister Baume-Schneider, taking questions in parliament on Monday, said: ‘The Sarco suicide capsule is not legally compliant in two respects.

‘Firstly, it does not meet the requirements of product safety law and therefore cannot be placed on the market. Secondly, the corresponding use of nitrogen is not compatible with the purpose article of the Chemicals Act,’ she said.

Fiona Stewart, who is on The Last Resort’s advisory board with Willet, said the group was acting on legal advice, which ‘since 2021 has consistently found that the use of Sarco in Switzerland would be lawful’.

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