The Port Arthur killer should be allowed to die following several attempts to kill himself in his prison cell, euthanasia advocate Dr. Philip Nitschke says.
Martin Bryant, Australia's worst mass murderer, is serving 35 life sentences for the 1996 killings of 35 people at Tasmania's historic Port Arthur penal settlement, in the world's worst mass murder by a lone gunman.
Bryant has made at least five suicide attempts in Tasmania's Risdon Prison and has been treated at hospital twice this year after slashing himself with disposable razor blades.
Tasmania's Director of Prisons Graeme Barber earlier this year confirmed that on one occasion Bryant secreted a blade in his body and later recovered it to slash his neck. The murderer has also swallowed a rolled-up tube of toothpaste.
"The sole goal of his (Bryant's) imprisonment is punishment and punishment without hope of release is tantamount to torture," Dr. Nitschke has said. "As a society we should admit we are sanctioning torture here and in those circumstances we should allow him to die or provide him with the means to obtain a peaceful death."
Check out the Sunday Telegraph article for an interesting and/or amusing (depending on your point of view) set of comments from Australian readers.
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