Date set for Belgium’s first prison euthanasia

Frank Van den Bleeken (pictured) was found insane by a court in the 1980s on charges of rape and murder of a 19-year-old girl and was committed to a psychiatric institution for an indeterminate term. He was released after seven years and carried out three more attacks.

He has spent most of the rest of his time in custody in prison and is currently housed in the medical wing of the prison in Turnhout.

Van den Bleeken has complained about the lack of adequate psychiatric care in the prison system, saying that nothing has been done to curb the impulses that led him to commit his crimes. The European Court for Human Rights in Strasbourg has condemned Belgium 14 times for failing to provide adequate care for psychiatric detainees.

The law on euthanasia requires that the patient convince doctors of intolerable suffering from an incurable condition. In Van den Bleeken’s case, a lack of treatment is being seen as a contributing factor to “unbearable psychological suffering”. His request was approved last year, and the procedure will be carried out in the Bruges prison facility on Sunday.

The case has led to criticism from right-to-die advocate Dr Wim Distelmans. He has decided to step down from his function as chair of the federal euthanasia evaluation committee, he wrote recently in De Morgen, “because certain legal requirements are not being respected”.

The law requires the suffering to be caused by the patient’s condition, which is only partly true in this case, noted Distelmans. More importantly, he wrote, all other avenues of treatment have not been exhausted.

photo: Frank Van Den Bleeken during last year’s hearing regarding whether to grant his request for euthanasia
©Virginie Lefour