BOGOTA, Jan. 8 (Reuters) – Colombian Victor Escobar became the first person in Andean country to be killed in a legally executed euthanasia late Friday, his lawyer Luis Giraldo has confirmed.

“Patients like me, not terminal but degenerate, have achieved the goal of winning this battle, in a battle that will open the door to other patients who will come after me and those who now want a dignified death,” Escobar said in a video message sent to 60 Giraldo Media.

On Saturday, a second Colombian woman with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALA), also known as Lou Kehric disease, was euthanized.

Escobar suffered from end-stage chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which greatly reduces quality of life, and many other conditions, Giraldo told Reuters.

The procedure took place at a clinic in Cali, the capital of the Valle del Cauca province of Colombia.

“I did not say goodbye, ‘see you later’,” Escobar said.

Escobar fought for two years for the right to euthanasia in the face of opposition from doctors, clinics and the courts, but last year the Constitutional Court recognized that the practice should not be limited to victims of the final illness.

On Saturday, Martha Sepulveda carried out the procedure at noon in the city of Medellin, the desk – who supported her case – said in a statement.

Zebul Veda, who was diagnosed with Lou Kehrik disease in 2018, was scheduled to be euthanized on October 10 last year, but the process was halted at eleven o’clock.

The Constitutional Court of Colombia abolished the death penalty for euthanasia in 1997 under certain circumstances and in 2014 ordered that the practice be streamlined. Was the first person in Colombia to die of a fatal disease under those rules.

According to the Colombian legal rights group DescLAB, as of October 15 last year, 178 people with end-of-life illnesses have been legally euthanized in Colombia since 2015.

Report by Oliver Griffin and Louis Jaime Acosta Edited by Mark Potter and David Gregorio

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