Two 'healthy and happy' Arizona sisters die by assisted suicide in Swiss clinic, authorities reveals

A 54 year-old American doctor and her 49 year-old nurse sister died by assisted suicide after vanishing during a trip to Switzerland.

Lila Ammouri, 54, a palliative care doctor, and Susan Frazier, 49, a nurse, traveled to Basel, Switzerland on February 3, from the home in Phoenix and spoke to their brother Cal Ammouri, 60, shortly before.

Frazier’s employer, Aetna Health in Phoenix, raised the alarm after she failed to return to work on February 15. The sister’s deaths were confirmed by the US Consulate on February 18, although their exact date of death remains unclear.

Ammouri says his siblings appeared healthy and happy, and has not given any indication as to whether they were suffering any illness that could have driven them to

They are said to have arrived in Switzerland on February 5, but never got their flight home.

A spokesman for the Basel-Landschaft Public Prosecutor’s Office confirmed to The Independent that the sisters had died by suicide ‘within the legal framework’.

It is unclear how or where the sisters’ died. Assisted suicide is legal in Switzerland. Dignitas is the most famous suicide clinic, but is based in a different Canton (county) to where the sisters took their lives.

Basel is home to an assisted suicide facility called Pegasos, which is a non-profit whose website says: ‘Pegasos believes that it is the human right of every rational adult of sound mind, regardless of state of health, to choose the manner and timing of their death.’

Lila Ammouri, left, and her sister Susan Frazier, right, both died by assisted suicide in Switzerland, their brother has revealed

Other clinics across Switzerland also offer similar services, with patients given a solution of barbiturates dissolved in water, which guarantees a painless death after being consumed.

Visitors to the clinics must undergo stringent checks before being allowed to avail of their services.

Pegasos, in particular, which has English speakers on staff, requires looking for assisted suicides to be members of the organizations and pay fees that exceed $11,000.

Pegasos has no required waiting period for assisted suicide but does require consultations and paperwork be completed first.

Patients are given the option of intravenous infusion or a small drink that provide a lethal overdose that will lull them to sleep and result in death.

Cal, of New York, said is unclear why his sisters chose to end their lives, and that U.S. consular services have kept him in the dark.

‘This is the most terrible thing that’s ever happened to me,’ Cal told DailyMail.com ‘ I’m an only child now. I don’t understand any of it.’

Suicide is legal at Switzerland’s famous Dignitas clinic, with visitors required to undergo a series of checks before being allowed to end their lives.

According to Cal and long-time friends of the women, the sisters were do back at work at Aetna Health Insurance on February 15 but never showed up.

The grieving brother said that both sisters appeared happy, with Lila owning a home in Phoenix and enjoying her job helping patients with serious illnesses and pain and Susan recently getting a promotion.

‘Why would you leave your jobs, your home, your loved ones, just abandon everything,’ Cal asked. ‘I just want some answers.’

Michael Lutz, a spokesperson for the Basel-Landschaft Public Prosecutor’s Office, told The Independent that the sisters death did not immediately result in a criminal investigation since it was strictly performed through legal means.

Swiss authorities are currently working with investigators from the Phoenix Police Department to learn what happened to the two sisters. Phoenix Police did not immediately return DailyMail.com’s request for comment.

The sister’s death was confirmed by the U.S. Consulate in Switzerland on February 18, weeks after friends and loved ones took to the Internet to spread awareness over their disappearance.

Dr. Majid Bilgari, a longtime friend of the sisters, said no one had heard from the duo since February 9, four days after they arrives in Switzerland.

Prior to that, Bilgari told Fox 10 that co-workers had been texting them and felt that the person responding was not actually one of the sisters.

‘Some of the text communications they had, we are certain they were not from them,’ Biglari said. ‘They were most likely fabricated with someone else.’

Like Cal, Bilgari mentioned that both sisters were happy and it was not like them to suddenly go missing.

Bilgari did not immediately respond to DailyMail.com’s request for comment.

Developing story, check back for updates

Assisted suicide is legal in Switzerland

In Switzerland, it is legal to provide an individual the means to commit suicide as long as the reason is not ‘based on self-interest.’

According to Swissinfo.ch, around 1,300 people died by assisted suicide in Switzerland in 2020. Prior to the pandemic, about half those were from oversees, the majority came from Germany and the UK.

The process is primarily carried out with the assistance of Dignitas and Exit, the two largest assisted suicide organizations in the country.

Dignitas, the larger of the two, was founded in 1998 and requires those wishing to end their life perform two consultations with the group and an independent doctor.

According to the group, the individual is reminded multiple times throughout the process that they can stop, including up to the moment they are provided with a lethal drug cocktail to take their own lives.

A signed affidavit is also produced as a show of proof that the suicide was conducted without malice, coercion or any other outside force, as per the country’s law.

The primary form of death through Dignitas is by an oral dose of a sedative drug, followed by a dose of another sedative which would kill the patient already dulled to sleep by the first drug.

After consultations, legal paper work and registry expenses, Dignitas services can cost around $8,000.

In the U.S. assisted suicide is only legal in California, Colorado, Oregon, Vermont, New Mexico, Maine, New Jersey, Hawaii, Washington and Washington D.C. if an individual has a terminal illness with a prognosis of six months or less to live.

In 2020, Colorado reported 188 prescriptions for aid-in-dying medications, with Oregon reporting that of the 2,895 prescriptions given out in the state that year, 1,905 were taken.

Vermont indicated that between July 1, 2017 and June 30, 2019, 34 patients had requested assisted suicide, with all 34 given the option.

Washington state reported in 2019 that the state had written 1,668 prescriptions for assisted suicide in the last decade, of which 1,622 people went through with the process.

In the UK, under the Suicide Act 1961, anyone helping or encouraging someone to take their own life in England or Wales can be prosecuted and jailed for up to 14 years if found guilty of an offence.

Section two of the act states that a person commits an offence if they carry out an act capable of encouraging or assisting the suicide or attempted suicide of another person, and the act was intended to encourage or assist suicide or an attempt at suicide.

In 2015 MPs including former prime minister David Cameron rejected a Bill to legalize assisted dying.

Opposition to changing the law has come from faith groups, campaigners who say disabled people may feel pressured to end their lives and campaigners who fear assisted dying would become a business.

The Campaign for Dignity in Dying, an anti-Dignitas group, estimates that nearly 350 Britons have died through Dignitas.

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Read more at DailyMail.co.uk

Two ‘healthy and happy’ Arizona sisters die by assisted suicide in Swiss clinic, authorities reveals

Assisted suicide is legal in Switzerland