Monday, April 03, 2006

Also in Europe

Back in January, a French court ordered Remy Martinot to have his parents cremated or buried. This was the result of a long-running legal battle as Remy fought to keep his parents frozen. But before he could appeal the decision to the European Court of Human Rights - the crypt in which they were stored heated up from -65C to -20C and Remy decided that "it was no longer reasonable to carry on". He cremated his parents.
His father died and was frozen in 2002 - the same year the a court ruled that keeping the bodies refrigerated at the family chateau was against the law. The BBC News report did not say why it took the courts so long to make the ruling - especially as Remy's father Raymond, a cryogenics enthusiast, had frozen his wife after her death in 1984, hoping that one day science might enable her to be revived. He showed off her crypt for a fee in the cellar of his chateau, in the Loire Valley town of Nueil-sur-Layon, to help pay for upkeep of the equipment.

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