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Head of Dutch right-to-die group released: lawyer

Dutch police on Thursday released the head of a right-to-die campaign group following his arrest on suspicion of involvement in assisted suicide, his lawyer said.

Jos van Wijk leads the Last Will Cooperative (CLW), which campaigns for the right for people to end their life without the involvement of doctors or officials.

The Netherlands in 2002 became the first country in the world to legalise euthanasia and assisted suicide, but only if aided by a doctor.

“We’re happy that Jos has been released, even if that does not make this arrest less useless and disproportionate,” his lawyer Tim Vis told AFP.

Van Wijk “categorically denies the accusation brought against him and stressed that he and the CLW act according to the law,” he added.

“We are therefore confidently waiting for the result of the investigation,” the lawyer said, without giving more information about the investigation or the status of his client.

Van Wijk, 73, was arrested on Wednesday, a day after his home in the central town of Apeldoorn and another property elsewhere in the Netherlands were searched.

Dutch media said a member of the cooperative from the southern city of Eindhoven had been arrested in July in connection with the deaths of at least six people who were allegedly supplied with “suicide powder”.

The group halted home meetings of its members after the arrest due to fears they were being used to set up deals to buy the drugs, public broadcaster NOS said.

Dutch law sets out strict rules for euthanasia and assisted suicide. The patient has to be lucid when making the request and experiencing unbearable suffering from a condition diagnosed as incurable by at least two doctors.

Euthanasia can be carried out by a doctor administering a fatal dose of an approved drug, while patients can administer the drug as long as a doctor supplies it.