Estonian court convicts man who provided assisted suicide service

TALLINN – The Tartu County Court found Paul Tammert guilty of unlicensed and prohibited economic activity carried out in the field of healthcare and handed him a conditional prison sentence of one year.

The sentence will not be enforced if Tammert does not commit a new crime during a two-year probation period and fulfills the requirements of probation supervision.

In addition, the court decided to confiscate 5,000 euros of criminal proceeds from Tammert as state revenue and to destroy the assisted suicide device seized from him along with its accessories.

Tammert must also pay procedural costs in the amount of 1,405 euros.

Tammert was accused of building a device with which a person can take their own life. According to the prosecutor's office, the indictment indicates that Tammert rented out the device at his own discretion at least three times to people, two of whom died as a result of using the device, but in the third case the process was interrupted because the device ran out of gas.

According to the court, Tammert's behavior is extremely dangerous in the wider society, as it can give people the deceptive impression that helping people leave this world is a heroic act.

In reality, the goal is instead to earn money in an illegal way, that is, to earn a profit without offering the required level of service in return, without applying for the required permit to operate in the relevant field of activity. If Tammert's service is permitted, then soon everyone can start walking around Estonia with a self-made helium-based gas device or some other self-made device, the purpose of which is to help people leave this world.