Security guard awaiting trial euthanised by prison authorities in Spain

Spanish prison authorities have euthanised a man who had shot and wounded four people in December and was subsequently wounded in a shootout with the police, rendering him paralysed and begging to be allowed to die while awaiting trial.

Spain legalised euthanasia just over a year ago. Prior to that, helping someone to end their life carried a jail term of up to 10 years. According to El País newspaper, in the year since the law came into force on 25 June 2021, at least 172 people used the right to assisted death.

Marin Eugen Sabau, 46, shot three of his colleagues at the security firm where he had worked in the north-eastern city of Tarragona, and then wounded a police officer while making his escape.

After he barricaded himself in a house with an arsenal of weapons, a tactical police unit stormed the building, shooting Sabau several times.

He was left a tetraplegic, had one leg amputated, and the wounds caused chronic pain that could not be treated with painkillers due to his fragile state and which he said made his further existence unbearable.