A former doctor who gave lethal injections to seven terminally ill patients to help them die has been cleared over poisoning charges at a French court.
Nicolas Bonnemaison had faced life in prison over the allegations. His lawyer said the acquittal was "enormous" and would add weight to the debate raging in France over the legality of assisted suicide.
Relatives of Bonnemaison's patients testified on his behalf during the trial as calls to legalise assisted suicide gather pace. Euthanasia is illegal in Britain and France but lawful in Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands.
Paul Lamb and Jane Nicklinson also argued for euthanasia to be legalised Mr Bonnemaison's acquittal comes as Britain's Supreme Court declared a ban on assisted suicide, set out in the 1961 Suicide Act, to be incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights.
Despite the ruling, the Supreme Court dismissed an appeal from two disabled men who had argued doctors should have a legal right to kill them if they so wished.
Jane Nicklinson, the widow of "locked-in syndrome" sufferer Tony Nicklinson, brought the case along with paralysed former builder Paul Lamb and another disabled man, known only as Martin, who want to make it legal for doctors to help end their patients' lives.
The court justices ruled against Ms Nicklinson and Mr Lamb by a seven-to-two majority; although five of them said they had the power to declare that a ban on assisted suicide breaches the right to private and family life.
Ms Nicklinson's with her former husband Tony who died in September 2012 The ruling suggests Britain should bring its law in line with the Human Rights Act.
The Supreme Court ruling and the acquittal of Dr Bonnemaison come as another court in France ruled doctors could withhold food and water from Vincent Lambert, who has been in a vegetative state for six years following a motorcycle accident.
It was argued Mr Lambert had communicated his wish to die in such circumstances before the accident that left him tetraplegic.
But just hours later on Tuesday night, that decision was over-ruled by the European Court of Human Rights, which ordered France to continue to treat Mr Lambert until it had time to properly examine the case.
"He is not sick, he is not at the end of his life, he is not suffering," Jean Paillot, a lawyer for Mr Lambert's parents, told BFM television.
"From our perspective, there is no reason to stop feeding or hydrating him."
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