The rapist and murderer Frank Van Den Bleeken, who won the right to be voluntarily put to death in Belgium, will not be euthanised following a medical decision (Belga/PA)

A rapist and murderer is to be put to death in Belgium this week, despite Europe’s ban on the death penalty, after a court granted him the right to euthanasia.

Frank Van Den Bleeken, 52, is not physically ill but claims his “psychological suffering” is unbearable and that he would prefer to die than spend more of his life behind bars.

He says he has no prospect of ever being released from prison as he cannot overcome his uncontrollable sexual impulses, and that he does not wish another two or three decades in jail.

His application to die was accepted by Belgium’s Federal Euthanasia Commission in September, and over the weekend, official gave approval for him to be taken to a specialist clinic on Sunday, where he will be killed by lethal injection.

Belgium legalised euthanasia in 2002, and is one of only three countries to allow the practice, the others being the Netherlands and Luxembourg. More countries, including Switzerland and some states of America, allow doctors to assist suicide in certain circumstances.

But Belgium has seen a fast growth in the number of cases of euthanasia, and has expanded the practice beyond terminally ill adults. It can now be used in cases of intense pain and psychological distress, while last February the right to euthanasia was extended to terminally ill children, as long as their parents gave consent.

One previous inmate has been euthanased, but he was suffering a terminal illness.

Van Den Bleeken raped Christiane Remacle, a 19-year-old girl, as she came home from a New Year’s Eve party on January 1 1989, and then strangled her with one of her own stockings.

He was deemed insane and not criminally responsible. After seven years on a prison psychiatric ward, he was released, attacking three more victims, aged 11, 17, and 29, within weeks.

He was then ordered to be detained indefinitely, and has seen “the outside” only once since, for his mother’s funeral.

Van Den Bleeken first applied for euthanasia in 2011, saying he had not been offered specialist therapy. Since then, a specialist centre has opened in Belgium, but he reapplied in any case.

Critics of his case say it reflects the poor mental health services available to Belgian inmates.

A child from an impoverished background, Van Den Bleeken had a troubled childhood, much of it spent in care, and was raped himself at the age of 15.

He first went to prison for sex offences at the age of 21.

He told a television documentary last year: “If people commit a sexual crime, help them to deal with it. Just locking them up helps no one - neither the individual, society or the victims.

“I am a human being, and regardless of what I’ve done, I remain a human being. So, yes, give me euthanasia.” However, the decision to grant his wish has been attacked by the family of his victim. Miss Remacle’s two older sisters have previously said he should “languish in prison” rather than be allowed a swift release.

“Commissions, doctors and experts have spent so long considering the ups and downs of the life of the murderer of our sister,” one, Annie, told a Dutch newspaper. “ In all those years, no committee ever asked our parents or us how we felt.

“No doctor or expert ever came and asked how we were. And then we hear his lawyer on the radio saying how tough it was for him to be abandoned in prison.”

In 2013, the last year for which full records have been published, the number of euthanasia cases in Belgium rose to 1,807, up 27 per cent on the year before.

More than a third of euthanasia cases are in those under 60, and although the vast majority of approvals are given to those in unrelievable physical pain or terminally ill, 67 cases last year cited psychological grounds, including dementia and psychosis.

Telegraph.co.uk