MS sufferer Davide commits suicide

(ANSA) - Rome, April 13 - Davide Trentini, the 53-year-old Tuscan multiple sclerosis (MS) sufferer who was accompanied by right-to-die activist Mina Welby to Zurich's Dignitas clinic Wednesday, on Thursday committed assisted suicide, sources said.
    Many Italians including the headline-grabbing blind and tetraplegic disc jockey DJ Fabo have been helped to commit euthanasia by the activist Luca Coscioni Association, and especially its treasurer Marco Cappato.
    In a video message, Davide said his goodbyes and thanked the Coscioni Association for its help.
    Welby, the co-chair of the association, said she would report herself to Carabinieri police tomorrow for assisting a suicide, which is a crime in Italy. The Coscioni Association has helped 268 people to die and has accompanied three to the Swiss Dignitas clinic, most taken there by Cappato. MS is a debilitating nerve-wasting disease. Davide had been suffering from it for 26 years, since 1993, and had found his recent years unbearable, sources said.
    Welby is the widow of Piergiorgio Welby, an Italian poet, painter and activist whose three-month-long battle to establish his right to die in 2006 led to a debate about euthanasia in Italy, rekindled by DJ Fabo's and other Swiss suicides. A bill on end-of-life issues including living wills, but not euthanasia, is before parliament amid criticism from the Catholic Church and conservative politicians.