Woman arrested for suspected euthanasia attempt on son

Woman from Arab Israeli village in the North taken into custody after police receives report from her son who suffers from muscular dystrophy.

By YAAKOV LAPPIN
Police arrested a 53-year-old woman Wednesday on suspicion of attempting to suffocate and disrupt the oxygen supply to her seriously ill teenage son at Haifa’s Rambam Medical Center in an apparent euthanasia effort.
The woman, from an Arab Israeli village in the North, was taken into custody after police received a report from her 17-year-old son, who suffers from muscular dystrophy.
According to the teenager, his mother smothered him with a pillow and disrupted the oxygen tube placed in his throat on Monday. The teenager reported the alleged actions to a hospital nurse, and Rambam called in police to investigate.
The boy has been ill with the degenerative disease since the age of 11, and police suspect his mother was motivated by a desire to alleviate his suffering.
The woman denied the allegations during questioning on Tuesday.
A Haifa Magistrate’s Court extended her custody by a day, and ordered police to allow her to undergo a psychiatric evaluation.
The woman’s husband said he could not believe the suspicions againsthis wife, adding that she had dedicated her life to caring for theirson.
“I don’t believe she is capable of doing such a thing. I also don’tknow how the boy, in his condition, could talk and make the claims thatare attributed to him,” the father told the Walla News Web site.
Doctors at the hospital told media outlets that the boy’s family had spent years looking after him.