Florence, 24 Mar. (LaPresse) – The judge for preliminary investigations of the Court of Florence, Agnese Di Girolamo, has rejected the request for dismissal presented by the Florentine prosecutor and the defence of the suspects in the case concerning the Tuscan Massimiliano Scalas, 44, from San Vincenzo (Livorno), suffering from multiple sclerosis, and has ordered that the public prosecutor, within ten days, formulates the forced accusation of aiding suicide against the suspects Marco Cappato, Chiara Lalli and Felicetta Maltese, members of the Luca Coscioni Association, who will therefore face a trial for having accompanied him to Switzerland. The offence of aiding suicide is punishable by 5 to 12 years' imprisonment. The magistrate's decision establishes that, despite the Constitutional Court having broadened the interpretation of the concept of ’ life-sustaining treatment’, Massimiliano Scalas could not be considered to have been kept alive by life-sustaining treatment because, as stated in the order, there must be “a strict connection with the vital nature of the life-sustaining treatment, to the point that its omission or interruption would foreseeably result in death within a short period of time”.
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