Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition
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| Minelli outside Dignitas |
Emily Crane reported for the New York Post that Ludwig Minelli, the founder of the Dignitas assisted suicide clinic in Switzerland died by assisted suicide on November 29, 2025.
Minelli (93), was first a journalist and then a "human rights lawyer." Minelli had originally been an advisor to the Exit assisted suicide group but left Exit and founded Dignitas in 1998 because he wanted to be more strident.
Crane reported that:
Dignitas, which says it has strict guidelines for accepting candidates, has helped roughly 4,000 people in Switzerland and across the world end their lives, according to the group.
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| Lake Zurich urns. |
Minelli was controversial for many reasons. Wikipedia reported that:
In a 2010 interview with The Atlantic magazine, Minelli admitted to depositing cremation urns containing the ashes of Dignitas members at Lake Zurich. A 2018 court case against Minelli focused on the circumstances surrounding the death of a woman who had bequeathed Dignitas 100,000 Swiss francs in her will. The organization had found the woman a fourth doctor who would prescribe drugs for assisted suicide after three doctors previously declined her request and the case accused him of profiteering from his clients.
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| Soraya Wernli |
Soraya Wernli, a former employee of Dignitas, was featured in a Daily Mail article in February 2009 accusing Minelli of being obsessed with profit and not with dignity. Wernli claimed, in the Daily Mail article that:
‘just a few days into the job, he (Minelli) asked me to sort through the stuff in these plastic bin liners clogging the stairs.’ Minelli told her to ‘empty the sacks onto a long table ... and sort through everything.
In the sacks Wernli found - Mobile phones, handbags, ladies’ tights, shoes, spectacles, money, purses, wallets, jewels, and more.
Minelli had his “patients” sign forms saying the possessions were now the property of Dignitas. He then sold everything to pawn shops and second-hand shops.
Wernli, who was a nurse and a former care worker for elderly people worked for the Dignitas assisted suicide clinic in Zurich for 2½ years. During that time she came to believe that Dignitas was less about ethical euthanasia for the terminally ill and more of a money-making machine for Minelli.
The interview in The Atlantic Magazine in February 2010 also featured Soraya Wernli, who accused Minelli of ethical and financial improprieties and a lack of concern for vulnerable people.
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| More Lake Zurich urns |
Minelli confirmed in The Atlantic interview that we was dumping the remains of people who died by assisted suicide in Lake Zurich. The article stated:
Minelli said he stores the urns until he has enough of them to load into his car. He then drives, usually at night, to a quiet spot on Lake Zurich, and tosses the remains into the water. Minelli insists that these burials are harmless but last year he was warned by Zurich’s water authority after they received complaints of human bone fragments washing up on shore.
BBC reporter, Imogen Foulkes published an investigative report on July 2, 2010 into Minelli and Dignitas. Foulkes reported:
Urns in Lake Zurich
The discovery of dozens of urns containing human ashes in Lake Zurich has served to focus attention once again on just what exactly assisted suicide groups are allowed to do.
It remains unclear who put the urns into the lake but there have been claims that Dignitas may have been involved: all the urns bore the label of the crematorium used by the organisation.
One German woman has come forward to say her stepmother's ashes were put in the lake by Dignitas, despite her wish to be buried next to her husband.
Foulkes commented on the Dignitas finances:
Dignitas has helped more than 1,000 people die in the past 12 years, (July 2010 report) many of them foreigners who come to Switzerland precisely because their own countries do not permit assisted suicide, Mr Minelli explained.
Each individual pays an initial membership fee, typically around $200 (£133), followed by annual membership fees of $80 (£53). Further fees for the consultation and the assisted suicide itself run to around $7,000 (£4,700).
When further asked about finances Mr Minelli refused to discuss the organisation's finances. Minelli stated: "This is a private organisation," he explained. "Only the active members have a right to know the facts, and the public has no right at all. We are not working with public money, so there is no reason for us to answer questions."
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| Pietro D'Amico |
In June 2013 I published an article about Pietro D’Amico, a 62-year-old magistrate from Calabria in Southern Italy, in who died by assisted suicide in April, 2013 after D'Amico received a wrong diagnosis. An article published in Switzerland's The Local, stated:
The father-of-one took the decision after a wrong diagnosis from Italian and Swiss doctors, his family's lawyer Michele Roccisano told Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.
An autopsy carried out by the University of Basel’s Institute of Forensic Medicine found that D’Amico was not suffering from a life-threatening illness at the time of his death.
Roccisano has called on the Italian and Swiss authorities to examine D’Amico’s medical records to determine what went wrong.
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| Oriella Cazzanello |
In February, 2014 the Daily Mail reported on Oriella Cazzanello, 85, who travelled to the assisted suicide clinic in Basel, Switzerland, where she paid €10,000 for an assisted suicide because she was unhappy about losing her looks. The article stated:
Cazzanello, who was in good mental and physical health, left her home in Arzignano, near Vicenza in northern Italy, without telling her relatives where she was going.
Her family, who had reported her to the police as missing, only learned of her death after they received her ashes and death certificate from the clinic.
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| Coffin leaving Dignitas |
In 2017 Swissinfo.ch reported that the Swiss high court upheld the requirement that Dignitas must dispose all remains in cemeteries. Swissinfo.ch reported:
The grisly find in 2010 prompted the local authorities to draft new regulations five years later that outlawed the professional disposal of human remains in the canton. Dignitas fought the order, arguing that it represented an unfair restriction of trade. But both the Administrative Court and now the Supreme Court have sided with the canton.
The discovery of 67 urns in Lake Zurich, near to a Dignitas clinic, made international headlines seven years ago. The human remains were found by divers from the lake rescue service who were looking for a missing sunshade.
A former Dignitas employee told the media that it was common to dump urns in the lake and estimated there to be around 300 in the watery grave. Dignitas denied the claims and Zurich prosecutors dropped a criminal probe after being unable to prove who had put the urns in the lake.
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| Dignitas |
There have been many controversial stories and deaths related to the Dignitas assisted suicide clinic. Dignitas claims to have assisted the suicides of more than 4000 people with the majority being "suicide tourists."
I will remembered Minelli as a serial killer, who primarily killed people with disabilities. Minelli took money from people with a death wish and killed them. He wasn't concerned about compassion, he was concerned with profit and killing.
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