We looted dead’s possessions like Nazis – Dignitas whistleblower
DIGNITAS is facing a new criminal investigation over claims it is making a huge profit from its assisted suicides, the Mail can reveal.
The clinic’s owner has become a millionaire since founding Dignitas, where nearly 300 Britons have ended their lives.
Now he is facing claims that he pocketed funds from vulnerable patients – and that staff were even told to loot valuables from the dead.
Ludwig Minelli is accused of manipulating desperate and lonely patients into donating hundreds of thousands of pounds into his personal bank account before they died.
One payment which is being investigated is that of a woman who committed suicide along with her mother. Shortly before her death, the daughter – from Germany – is understood to have transferred a ‘special membership fee’ of £14,500 to Dignitas.
The investigation will also look into claims that staff were told to collect purses, watches, jewellery and cash from clients after helping them commit suicide. Former staff member Soraya Wernli said she was ordered to sift through bin-liners filled with the possessions of those who had died – saying it made her feel like a looter at a ‘Nazi death camp.’
The nurse says Dignitas is simply a ‘money-making machine… concerned only with profits.’
Prosecutors in Zurich have now asked Mrs Wernli to give evidence as part of a major new investigation into the organisation’s opaque financial dealings.
Swiss police have also searched properties linked to Dignitas.
The controversial clinic – which is happy to assist patients to commit suicide even if they are not terminally ill– charges £8,400 for every death.
While assisted suicide is legal in Switzerland, this is only the case if the person who practices it does not have a selfish motive – such as personal financial gain.
Mr Minelli, 82, who lives in a large detached home just outside of Zurich, has repeatedly denied claims that he is making money out of the deaths of his patients – insisting that Dignitas is a ‘not for profit’ company. But he has refused to make the accounts of the clinic public.
Documents obtained by the Mail show that Mr Minelli’s income has more than quadrupled since a decade ago. He is now earning nearly £100,000 a year, according to the latest available accounts. The human rights lawyer has also amassed a huge personal fortune – although he insists this is the result of a family inheritance.
A Swiss magazine claims Dignitas patients were given payment slips for a personal bank account in Mr Minelli’s name, rather than a Dignitas account. Mr Minelli would face up to five years in prison if found guilty of assisting suicide for ‘ selfish motives’ and risks a longer term if convicted of fraud.
Mrs Wernli has been interviewed by prosecutors about Dignitas’s finances. She said there were occasions when vulnerable patients would make huge ‘donations’ to Dignitas.
‘I remember the case of Martha Hauschildt, a German woman, who died aged 81 in the death house in July 2003,’ she said. ‘I saw from the paperwork that she gave Minelli 200,000 Swiss francs (around £140,000). These are people who are vulnerable.’ Mrs Wernli al s o described how bulging black plastic bin liners were left in the office run by Mr Minelli.
‘Minelli said I should empty the sacks on to a long table and sort through everything,’ she said. ‘I was horrified by what was i nside. Mobile phones, handbags, ladies’ tights, shoes, spectacles, money, purses, wallets, jewels... possessions left behind by the dead.
‘ Minelli made his patients sign forms saying the possessions were now the property of Dignitas and then sold everything on to pawn and secondhand shops. I felt disgusted. You see these old photos of people in Nazi death camps sorting through the possessions of those who had been gassed. That is how I felt.’
Confirming she had been interviewed by prosecutors, she said: ‘They asked me questions about money and about the urns of ashes dumped in the Zurich lake.’ Mrs Wernli worked at Dignitas for two and a half years until 2005. She was so concerned about what was going on, she spent the last eight months in acting as an undercover police informant.
Mr Minelli denies any wrongdoing. Dignitas declined to comment on the Mail’s evidence, the police investigation, or any of the claims made by Mrs Wernli.
‘People who were vulnerable’