Man a prisoner in the penitentiary center in the canton of Zurich (north-east Switzerland) appealed on February 28 to euthanasia for the first time in the history of the Central European country, according to Swiss media on Thursday.

The man, whose identity has not been released, was serving a sentence in the Bostadel prison and he died with the support of the suicide relief organization Exit.

The Ministry of Justice and the Interior of the Canton of Zurich stated that in its jurisdictionany person can choose the path and moment of his death, including prisoners.

In 2018, the Swiss authorities refused this procedure csentenced to life in prison for repeated rape Peter Vogt, which caused a great controversy in the country.

Assisted suicide is legal in Switzerland due to an omission in its Penal Code (dated 1942), so Hundreds of them are practiced every yearsometimes from people from abroad who do not have this right in their own countries, such as the famous recent case of the French film director Jean-Luc Godard.

swiss law differencehowever, betweeneuthanasia(it is prohibited by law) and “euthanasia”in the sense that the patient must play an active role at the moment when it is practiced: for example, he must be the one who, take a lethal dose of barbiturates with your own hands.