The head of Swiss right-to-die organisation Dignitas has died through assisted suicide, the group said in a statement on Sunday.

Ludwig Minelli, who founded the group in 1998, died on Saturday just days before his 93rd birthday, Dignitas said.

Dignitas said it would "continue to manage and develop the association in the spirit of its founder as a professional and combative international organisation for self-determination and freedom of choice in life and at the end of life".

Minelli, a lawyer by trade, faced plenty of legal challenges and made several successful appeals to the Swiss supreme court and the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).

Dignitas said his work had a lasting influence on Swiss law, pointing to a 2011 ECHR ruling that recognised the right of a person to decide the

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