PostedAugust 23, 2022, 9:46 PM
SpainEuthanized before his trial for attempted murder
Last December, a security guard shot four people, including two police officers. He had been paralyzed since the shooting and, in early July, a judge had “granted” him euthanasia.
The security guard had been shot in the spine during a shootout with Catalan police.
Photo d’illustration/AFP
In Spain, a man paralyzed since a shooting, during which he shot four people, was euthanized on Tuesday before his trial, an unprecedented decision in the country where the right to die took precedence over legal proceedings. “In line with the achievement of euthanasia scheduled for today (note: Tuesday)Marin Eugene Sabu died at 6:30 p.m. at the Terrassa hospital, “very close to Barcelona, announced his lawyer.
Marin Eugen Sabau, 46, a Romanian security guard, shot three colleagues and a police officer in December 2021, injuring several people but none dead, in Tarragona, Catalonia, before being also hit by a shot in the spine which had left him paralyzed. The man the Spanish press dubbed “the Tarragona shooter” said he acted because he was living “hell” at work and accused his bosses of racism.
Following the shooting, he was bedridden in the Terrassa prison hospital and demanded the right to die. “I am a paraplegic. I have 45 points in my hand. I can’t move my left arm. I have screws in my body and I no longer feel my chest,” he explained to the judge of the Court of Tarragona, who ruled in his favor at the beginning of July.
The court did not oppose his request for euthanasia, considering that it was a “fundamental right” and that “the law does not specifically regulate euthanasia when it comes to persons in pre-trial detention or who are the subject of legal proceedings”.
Victims will not receive compensation
The lawyers for the civil parties wanted a trial so that the accused might compensate the victims. “The victims have a feeling of frustration: we left a person to decide when and how to end the legal proceedings,” said José Antonio Bitos, the lawyer for two police officers injured (one by bullets, the other in the chase that followed).
“We were not opposed to euthanasia in itself, but to the fact that it took place before the trial”, he insisted, regretting not having been able “to see this gentleman sit in the dock “. He points out that, while his clients will obtain compensation from the public administration because they were injured in service, the other victims of the shooting “will have neither trial nor compensation”.
The law authorizing euthanasia entered into force on June 25, 2021 in Spain, making it the fourth European country to have decriminalized it, following the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg.
(AFP)
