A Belgian academic learnt that his mother was dead when a hospital telephoned to ask him to collect her body from the morgue.
Only then did Tom Mortier learn that Godelieva De Troyer, 64, had died by lethal injection at her own request. She was physically healthy but suffered, according to the doctor who administered euthanasia, from “incurable depression”.
In response to her death, Professor Mortier, 45, launched a case in the European Court of Human Rights, claiming that his mother’s “mercy killing” in a Brussels hospital in 2012 violated the European Convention on Human Rights because the Belgian authorities failed to properly protect her right to life.
Neither he nor any family member was consulted at the time and De Troyer’s treating psychiatrist of
