Ludwig Minelli, the founder of assisted suicide group Dignitas, has lost a case against a newspaper columnist who Minelli claims defamed him. 

The Federal Supreme Court dismissed the libel case from 2009, upholding a district court opinion.

Ludwig Minelli claimed a column from the Zürichsee-Zeitung newspaper, titled “Better to die,” qualified as defamation.

In it, the author said, among other things, “What kind of monster is this man, who would, on demand, in small rooms or parking lots, knock off people who have come from far away. ”

A lower court fined the columnist in 2010, but higher courts disagreed that the text qualifies as defamation; and is rather satire.