Belgian rapist and murderer is granted mercy killing after 30 years in jail
Belgium, one of only a few countries to allow euthanasia, has accepted a serial rapist's request that he be allowed to die to end his mental torment, his lawyer said.
Belgium, one of only a few countries to allow euthanasia, has accepted a serial rapist's request that he be allowed to die to end his mental torment, his lawyer said.
Frank Van Den Bleeken, who has spent the past 30 years in prison for repeated rape convictions and a rape-murder, has for years requested that the state help him end his life due to "unbearable psychic suffering", lawyer Jos Vander Velpen told Belgian television on Monday.
Van Den Bleeken is to be transferred from his prison in Bruges to a hospital within the next few days, where he will be euthanised, he said.
Belgium legalised euthanasia in 2002, the second country in the world to do so after the Netherlands, and logged a record 1,807 cases of euthanasia in 2013.
Its strict conditions for a mercy killing include that patients must be capable, conscious and have presented a "voluntary, considered and repeated" request to die.
Lawyer Vander Velpen said the sex offender met all legal conditions, and for the past four years had felt he "couldn't stand to live like this any longer and could no longer accept the pain".
"I am a human being, and regardless of what I've done, I remain a human being. So, yes, give me euthanasia," Van Den Bleeken said on Belgian television.