Doctors in Belgium have rejected an imprisoned murderer and rapist’s request for medically assisted suicide, the Justice Ministry said on Tuesday, less than a week before he was due to receive a lethal injection.
Justice Minister Koen Geens told local media last week that Frank Van Den Bleeken, serving a life sentence, would receive the injection on January 11, after the ministry consented to his euthanasia request in September.
A Justice Ministry statement said medical confidentiality prevented the doctors, whom it did not identify, from disclosing why they had decided to stop the process. Spokeswoman Sieghild Lacoere said the ruling did not mean that prisoners could no longer ask for euthanasia.
Van Den Bleeken’s assisted death would have been the first involving a prisoner since Belgium legalised euthanasia 12 years ago — one of only a few countries worldwide to have done so.
The convicted serial killer will instead be assessed at a newly opened psychiatric centre in Ghent and potentially then transferred to a centre in the neighbouring Netherlands dealing with long-term prisoners, the ministry said.
