Prosecutor Charges Kevorkian With Assisting Suicide of Doctor

The prosecutor who has been one of retired pathologist Jack Kevorkian’s most vocal critics charged him Tuesday with assisting in the November suicide of a bone cancer patient.

Although the state Court of Appeals is to hear arguments Thursday on the legality of Michigan’s assisted suicide ban, Oakland County Prosecutor Richard Thompson said he saw no reason to delay charging Kevorkian in the Nov. 22 death of Dr. Ali Khalili.

“Continued defiance and disregard of the law passed by the duly elected representatives of the people cannot be condoned and must be resisted,” Thompson said. “I make no apologies for enforcing the law.”

Kevorkian attorney Geoffrey Fieger, who once pinned a clown nose on a picture of Thompson at a news conference, was quick to condemn him.

“Your arrest of Dr. Kevorkian would be even stupider than the stupidest thing you have ever done in your life (and, believe me, you have done some unbelievably stupid things),” Fieger said in a letter to Thompson before the warrant was announced.

Thompson was the prosecutor who filed murder charges against Kevorkian in three cases before Michigan had an assisted suicide law. Each charge was thrown out.

Thompson said his office was arranging for Kevorkian to be arraigned today in the death of Khalili, 61, of Oak Brook, Ill.

Kevorkian is already under house arrest for another assisted suicide case in Oakland County and wears an electronic ankle bracelet to monitor his movements. That case involves Merian Frederick, 72, who had Lou Gehrig’s disease and died in October in a vacant apartment next to Kevorkian’s.

Thompson said he’ll seek “substantial cash bond” in the Khalili case.

Kevorkian, 65, has witnessed 20 suicides and has admitted supplying carbon monoxide gas or other deadly material in some of the cases. Five have come since the Legislature outlawed assisted suicide in February, specifically to stop Kevorkian. The crime carries a sentence of up to four years in prison and a $2,000 fine.

In order to be released after an 18-day jailhouse hunger strike last month in Oakland County, Kevorkian promised to stop assisting suicides until the state appeals court acts. He had earlier said he would ignore the law.

The state Court of Appeals is to hear arguments Thursday in two separate challenges of the law, which was declared unconstitutional by two judges in nearby Wayne County.