Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jul 21, 2023 / 15:42 pm
A British man was found not guilty of murder in the killing of his wife, with judges ruling that the defendant instead committed manslaughter when he suffocated his spouse in an alleged act of assisted suicide.
Judges handed down the verdict on Friday in Cyprus, where 75-year-old David Hunter had been living with his wife, Janice, in retirement before smothering her with a pillow in December 2021.
Hunter, a former miner, had told the court that his wife “begged him” to end her painful suffering from blood cancer.
The defendant’s law firm, Justice Abroad — a U.K.-based concern that offers legal services to British citizens in other countries — said in a press release announcing the verdict that the court “agreed with the defense position that this was not a case of premeditated murder,” given that Hunter “had acted spontaneously to end the life of his wife of over 50 years, upon her begging him to do so because of the pain she was under.”