Cappato probed for second Swiss suicide

(ANSA) - ROME, NOV 28 - Right to die campaigner Marco Cappato has been placed under investigation in Milan for a second trip to help an Italian commit assisted suicide in a Swiss clinic last week, sources said after the Luca Coscioni Association treasurer reported himself to prosecutors Monday morning.
    Radical party member Cappato, 51, told prosecutors he had committed another act of civil disobedience in taking ex-journalist and copy writer Romano, 82, to the Dignitas Clinic in Zurich after helping a 69-year-old Veneto terminal cancer sufferer, Elena Altramira, kill herself there last summer.
    Cappato has been cleared in several other previous cases.
    Romano, a chronic Parkinson's sufferer, committed assisted suicide on Friday afternoon, his daughter said in a video posted online.
    The pensioner of Tuscan origin and resident at Peschiera Borromeo, near Milan, "would have wished to die at home surrounded by his loved ones," said the daughter, Francesca.
    Cappato said he would turn himself in to police in Milan and said "he once more risks up to 12 years in prison".
    He added: "It is unworthy of a civilized country to continue to tolerate clandestine death in exile".
    Although it is still formally illegal, a Constitutional Court ruling on assisted suicide has provided the basis for some regions to allow lethal drugs to be taken by some patients wishing to end their lives. (ANSA).