man acquitted after ending his wife's suffering

The affair has been revived again debates around the end of life. Wednesday October 30, the Assize Court of Troyes (Aube) acquitted Bernard Pallot, tried for having killed his wife Suzanne in 2021. The jurors accepted the explanations of this 78-year-old man, who always said he acted at the request of his wife, who was seriously ill. “It was a clandestine euthanasia that I carried out”he defended himself to France 2 a few days earlier.

“No murder, there is a connotation of hatred”continues Bernard Pallot. “Quite the opposite” of his action, he explains. His wife suffered from several pathologies, in particular Carrington disease, a chronic lung disease, and osteoporosis, with multiple fractures, including one of the neck of the femur which occurred shortly before the events.

A note left by his wife

Faced with pain, she asked her husband to help her die, he assures. “I told him ‘I’ll help you’”he remembers. “She wrote me a paper, written in her own hand, saying she asked me assistance”found by investigators near his body, on October 11, 2021. This day, “She suffered two fainting spells in a row with the pain, she couldn't drink anymore… She told me, 'You know, it's today'”says Bernard Pallot. He injected him with a dose of cyanide, without success, before strangling him with an electric wire.

For this act, the septuagenarian was tried for “premeditated murder”, and spent a year in pre-trial detention. The attorney general had requested eight years in prison against him. “I am happy that my father got what he hoped for, (…) that he showed that he was not a murderer”comments the couple's son after the verdict. The legal case is not over, because the prosecution appealed the acquittal decided by the jury.

Watch the full report in the video above.

A.Portes, P.Lhermitte, M-GFontant, K.Laffin, O.Mayer, N.Jauson