Canadian citizen Kenneth Law has pleaded guilty in court to helping people in various countries die by suicide by selling a poisonous substance online. As part of a deal with prosecutors, he admitted to 14 charges, leading to the withdrawal of the more serious murder charges against him.
Law, 60, made the admission at a court in the Canadian province of Ontario on Friday. The investigation found that, through various online forums and websites, he had supplied about 1,200 packages of poison to people in at least 40 countries.
According to authorities, about a quarter of the packages were sent to the United Kingdom. Although all 14 charges relate to Canadian victims, some UK families say many people there died because of products supplied by Law.
Some relatives of victims have expressed anger over the role of British prosecutors. But the UK’s Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said it had supported his guilty plea in Canada and requested that the deaths of British citizens be taken into account at sentencing. The CPS said that, having faced trial and punishment for the same offence in Canada, extraditing Law to the UK could be legally complicated, which is why no separate case was pursued there.
Canadian law provides for a maximum of 14 years in prison for assisting suicide. His sentencing hearing will begin on September 23, with written statements from victims’ families to be presented to the court.
Law was arrested in May 2023 after a joint investigation by law enforcement agencies in the UK, the United States, Italy and several other countries, which found he ran multiple websites selling items used to help end lives. His activities had come to light before his arrest in an investigative report by British media, in which an undercover journalist posing as a buyer contacted him and gathered alarming information.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report