The founder of Swiss assisted suicide group, Dignitas, died at the weekend by assisted suicide, the organisation said in a statement.
Dignitas said that it was mourning the death of its founder and secretary general, Ludwig Minelli, who died on Saturday via assisted suicide, shortly before his 93rd birthday.
“Minelli died on 29 November 2025 shortly before his 93rd birthday self-determinedly by voluntary assisted dying,” the organisation said in its statement.
Minelli, a former journalist and lawyer, founded Dignitas in 1998, shortly after leaving another Swiss assisted suicide group, Exit.
Dignitas has enabled the assisted suicide of thousands of people since its inception, saying on its website that it pursues the additional goal, through international legal and political means, “to make the proven Swiss model of freedom of choice, self-determination and personal responsibility in life and at life’s end also accessible to individuals abroad”.
The group is best known for the controversial practice of offering assisted suicide to non-Swiss citizens who travel to Switzerland because the practice is illegal or remains unlegislated for in their own countries.
Assisted suicide has been permitted in Switzerland since the 1940s, while the practice has continued to expand to other western nations, such as the Netherlands, Belgium, Canada, Australia and in a number of US states.
Legalisation of the assisted suicide is subject to ongoing debate in Ireland, the UK, France and Germany.