Estonian man charged with renting out euthanasia device

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

ERR News reported on October 26 that the Estonian Southern District Prosecutor's Office charged Paul Tammert with renting out a euthanasia device for financial gain. According to the ERR News:

The Prosecutor's Office told ERR that: "According to the charge sheet, [Tammert] rented out the device at his own discretion at least three times to people, two of whom died as a result of using said device, while in the third case the process was left incomplete, since the device ran out of gas."

Kairi Kaldoja, lead prosecutor at the Southern District Prosecutor's Office, said that according to the indictment, Tammert offered people health status assessments, then permitted them to make use of a gas which can cause fatality when inhaled, i.e. he provided healthcare services for which he was not licensed.

Tammert appears to be another euthanasia rogue activist who believes in assisting a person's suicide. I am not sure of the laws in Estonia, but clearly Tammert was assisting the suicide of these people. ERR continued:

Kaldoja said: "Paul Tammert first assessed whether a person's mental acuity was adequate enough to be able to make their own decisions at the same time that their physical health had been sufficiently incurable to warrant ending their own life."

"Having completed an assessment, he rented out a device which allowed the person to utilize the lethal gas. According to the prosecutor's office, a doctor's qualification and a health service license are required both to assess people's health conditions and to use any gas which has an effect on those individuals' health, yet Paul Tammert lacks both of these," Kaldoja went on.

Even with such permission, Tammert would not legally have been able to act unilaterally in his actions.

The article concludes by stating that Tammert, if convicted, would face 3 years in jail.

Euthanasia was debated in Estonia in 2020.