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Of: TT
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February 1 | Photo: Erik Simander / TT
Attorney Thomas Bodström represents the man who was convicted of murder after helping his seriously ill wife end her life. Stock Photography.
The seriously ill woman wanted to end her life and her husband gave her a lethal dose of morphine. The district court sentenced him to one and a half years in prison for murder. A sentence that the Court of Appeal is now reducing.
– We are not satisfied, says the man’s lawyer, Thomas Bodström.
The woman had been ill for several years and she herself had declared that she wanted to end her life. The same night the man gave her the lethal dose syringe, in March 2019, she recorded a farewell speech and then made a failed suicide attempt. It was after this that the man is said to have injected her with morphine.
The man, who is in his 60s, admitted the facts but denied the crime. Instead, its defender Thomas Bodström argued that the action should be seen as an aid and instigation to suicide.
The Ångermanland District Court disagreed and last fall sentenced the man to a year and a half in prison for murder.
Reduced penalty
The verdict was appealed to the Lower Norrland Court of Appeal, which now changes the district court’s verdict so that the prison term is set at one year. However, it makes no other assessment than that of the district court when it comes to manslaughter.
– This is a step in the right direction, but we are not satisfied until my client is fully acquitted, says Thomas Bodström, who is the man’s lawyer.
The Court of Appeal writes in the ruling that there is no legislation in Sweden that addresses directly what one person can do to help another who wishes to die. Instead, the court is referring to a 1979 Supreme Court ruling when a woman helped an almost completely paralyzed person take her own life.
Extensive documents
On the basis of that HD ruling, the Court of Appeal assesses that the husband’s actions (he crushed tablets in a mortar, mixed the powder with water, and injected the mixture into the wife’s arm) were “so extensive and independent that his participation cannot be evaluated as an accessory to suicide. “
Thomas Bodström says the Appeals Court ruling will be appealed to the Supreme Court.
– Partly because it is about helping and inciting and then he will be acquitted. In any case, if they have performed an act together and in agreement, they must be judged together. In this case, they have helped her commit suicide together. Then you will be acquitted. It shouldn’t be the case that she committed suicide and he committed murder, but they have done it together and then he should be acquitted on that basis.
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