Charlie Smith
THE euthanasia debate has been reopened in Spain after a man was arrested for helping his terminally ill wife die.
Angel Hernandez, 70, assisted the death of his wife Maria Jose Carrasco, 61, who suffered multiple sclerosis for 30 years.
The Spanish couple filmed a video of Carrasco swallowing a lethal dose of sodium pentobarbital through a straw.
Hernandez immediately handed himself in at a police station, where he confessed to assisting his wife’s death, and then spent a night in a Madrid prison cell.
“Do you still want to kill yourself?” he asks his wife in the footage, to which she replies, “Yes, the sooner the better.”
Hernandez’s lawyer said that the aim of the video was to show his wife’s ‘suffering and abandonment’.
After leaving the court on Thursday, Hernandez said: “I have declared everything I did for my wife and now I am under investigation and being held responsible for her death.
“The officials and police have been sympathetic to me, they’ve treated me very well and they have agreed with me.”
Hernandez is the first person to be arrested in Spain for assisting the death of a physically disabled person.
Although the judge in charge of the case has released Hernandez without charge, he may have to reappear in court.
Carrasco enjoyed painting and playing the piano, but had to give up her hobbies once her illness got worse.
The PSOE has accused the Ciudadanos and the PP of blocking legislation which aims to decriminalize euthanasia.
A new law does have parliamentary approval, but it is held back by the congressional standing committee, which is controlled by the PP and Ciudadanos.
