A SUICIDE pod activist has taken his own life after being interrogated over the murder of a woman who died in one of the euthanasia devices.

Florian Willet, 47, suffered a mental breakdown after being arrested by Swiss Police last year, according to Philip Nitschke, the inventor of the Sarco suicide capsule.

AFP

Florian Willet has taken his own life at 47[/caption]

AFP

The Sarco assisted suicide capsule[/caption]

AFP

The first person to die in a Sarco pod was a 64-year-old American woman in September last year, in a Swiss forest[/caption]

Willet, from Germany, was the director of Last Resort, the Swiss suicide organisation which operated the Sarco pods.

He was also a prominent right-to-die activist.

The director was investigated for aiding and abetting suicide after a woman became the first person to die in one of the pods last September.

As part of the probe, prosecutors investigated whether he strangled the woman, but that was ruled out.

Willet was released in December after being held in pre-trial detention for 70 days.

Nitschke, who also directs pro-assisted dying group Exit International, said: “Gone was his warm smile and self-confidence.

“In its place was a man who seemed deeply traumatised by the experience of incarceration and the wrongful accusation of strangulation.”

He revealed that his colleague Willet sought help and went into hospital twice before his death on May 5 this year.

Willet reportedly died in Germany with the help of a specialist organisation, though it is not known exactly how he died.

Nitschke continued: “To describe Florian is to talk of a man who was thoughtful, caring, funny, and friendly. He was an easy person to be around.

“But most of all, Florian was kind. Florian was also passionate about a person’s right to choose when to die.”

Suicide is legal in Switzerland within certain tight restrictions.

The pod had never been used until last year, and there had been warnings that using it for suicide may be illegal.

In September last year, an unnamed 64-year-old American woman with an immune disease entered the pod and pressed a button to fill the Sarco pod with nitrogen gas.

Willet was the only person present when she died in a forest in Schaffhausen, Switzerland.

AFP

Willet (L) and Australian euthanasia activist Philip Nitschke (R) who paid tribute after his death[/caption]

The Mega Agency

When nitrogen is released into the pod it rapidly reduces oxygen levels, which prevents feelings of panic or suffocation[/caption]

He reported the death to the authorities but was arrested along with several others.

All those detained were then released, other than Willet.

He reported that the first Sarco pod death was as “peaceful, fast and dignified”.

Before his arrest, Willet said in an interview: “By the age of five I took my own dying by suicide into consideration.”

He also revealed that when he was 14 his father had taken his own life, but that he was “completely find with it”.