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SUICIDE

Mum charged over suicide jump with baby

A 33-year-old Stockholm woman, who suffered serious injuries after jumping from a bridge holding her 3-month-old baby in July, has been charged over the child's death.

Published: 25 November 2012 10:25 CET
Mum charged over suicide jump with baby

The woman has been charged with manslaughter, with an alternative charge of manslaughter of a child, according to the Aftonbladet daily.

“Everything indicates a post-natal depression,” her lawyer Frida Wallin said.

The incident occurred on a Saturday morning at the end of July near Slussen – a busy road and public transport junction in central Stockholm.

According to a witness report the woman stood for a while on the bridge before leaping over the railing onto the road below.

The mother and child initially survived the 12 metre fall but were taken to intensive care with serious injuries.

The baby boy died in a hospital a few days later.

The woman, who for a long while was kept in a medically induced coma, was taken into custody by police initially on suspicion of murder or alternatively manslaughter.

The woman broke her leg in the fall and is reported to be well on her way to a full recovery.

The trial is set to take place at Stockholm District Court on December 3rd.

TT/The Local/pvs

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SUICIDE

Switzerland backs assisted suicide in prisons

Sick prisoners will be allowed to request assisted suicide in Switzerland although the modalities still have to be worked out, prison system officials said on Thursday.

Published: 7 February 2020 09:11 CET
Switzerland backs assisted suicide in prisons
Illustration photo: AFP

The issue has come to the fore following a request made in 2018 by a convict behind bars for life, which exposed a legal vacuum in a country that has long been at the forefront of the global right-to-die debate.

Switzerland's cantons, which implement prison sentences, have agreed “on the principle that assisted suicide should be possible inside prisons,” the Conference of Cantonal Departments of Justice and Police said.

Conference director Roger Schneeberger told AFP that there were still differences between cantons on how assisted suicides could be carried out in prisons and a group of experts would issue recommendations by November.

Swiss law generally allows assisted suicide if the person commits the lethal act themselves — meaning doctors cannot administer deadly injections, for example — and the person consistently and independently articulates a wish to die.

Organisations that support assisted suicide also apply their own procedures, which are more robust than the legal requirements and sometimes require the person who is requesting it to have a serious illness.

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