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French euthanasia doctor 'attempts suicide'

Nicolas Bonnemaison, who was convicted of poisoning a terminally ill patient, was found slumped in a vehicle in south-west France.

La rédaction de Mediapart

This article is freely available.

An emergency room doctor in France who was convicted of poisoning a terminally ill patient has attempted to kill himself, sources close to the case said Saturday, reports Yahoo! News.

Nicolas Bonnemaison, 54, was found on Saturday morning slumped in a vehicle in the village of Tosse in southwestern France after apparently taking medication.

He was transported by helicopter to a hospital in nearby Bordeaux, where one source said his condition was stabilising.

On October 24, an appeals court in the western city of Angers handed Bonnemaison a two-year suspended sentence for killing a patient, an 86-year-old woman.

But it backed a lower court ruling that had acquitted him last year of the poisoning deaths of six other terminally ill patients.

In an emotionally charged trial that gripped a country where euthanasia is illegal, Bonnemaison was accused of "poisoning particularly vulnerable people" -- five women and two men who died between March 2010 and July 2011 soon after being admitted to the hospital in the southwestern city of Bayonne where he worked.

Read more of this AFP report published by Yahoo! News.