Police in the northern Schaffhausen canton said the capsule had been used Monday at a forest hut, after which several people were taken into custody — and are now facing criminal proceedings.

“The public prosecutor’s office of the canton of Schaffhausen has opened criminal proceedings against several people for inducement and aiding and abetting suicide,” regional police said.

The Last Resort organisation, an assisted dying group, presented the Sarco pod in Zurich in July, saying they expected it to be used for the first time within months and saw no legal obstacle to its use in Switzerland.

In a statement to AFP, The Last Resort said that the person who died was a 64-year-old woman from the midwestern United States.

She “had been suffering for many years from a number of serious problems associated with severe immune compromise”, the statement said.

“The death took place in open air, under a canopy of trees, at a private forest retreat.”

The association’s co-president Florian Willet was the only other person present, and described the woman’s death as “peaceful, fast and dignified”, according to the statement.

The woman, who was not named, “died using the Sarco device” at approximately 4:01 pm (1401 GMT) on Monday.

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The capsule has raised a host of legal and ethical questions in Switzerland, where active euthanasia is banned but assisted dying has been legal for decades.

The space-age looking Sarco capsule was first unveiled in 2019. Assisted dying groups expected the portable suicide pod to be in use by summer but authorities have not given the green light.

The 3-D printed coffin-like Sarco suicide machine, can be activated from the inside by the person intending to die, by filling the capsule with nitrogen, which induces hypoxic death to the occupant.

Switzerland’s public prosecutor’s office was informed by a law firm at 4:40 pm on Monday that an assisted suicide had taken place that afternoon “at a forest hut in Merishausen”, the Swiss police statement said on Monday.

The police, the forensic emergency service and the public prosecutor’s office “went to the crime scene”.

The Sarco suicide capsule was secured and the deceased taken away for an autopsy.

“Several people in the Merishausen area were taken into police custody,” the statement said.

READ ALSO: What you should know about assisted dying in Switzerland

This week Switzerland’s Health Minister Elisabeth Baume-Schneider, said the way Sarco functions — that is, by filling the pod with poisonous nitrogen gas — does not comply with the existing legislation.

The main reason is that federal law requires that all products in Switzerland must be safe, and not endanger the health or life of users.

Sarco, which literally causes death, does not meet this condition, Baume-Schneider said.

The person wishing to die must first pass a psychiatric assessment of their mental capacity — a key legal requirement.

The person climbs into the purple capsule, closes the lid, and is asked automated questions such as who they are, where they are and if they know what happens when they press the button.

“‘If you want to die’, the voice says in the processor, ‘Press this button’,” said Sarco inventor Philip Nitschke, a leading global figure in right-to-die activism.