Court rules feeding tube must stay

Italy's Supreme Court yesterday rejected a man's appeal to remove a feeding tube keeping his daughter alive, weeks after a bitter row over brain-damaged Terri Schiavo divided the United States.

The Italian court confirmed an earlier ruling that called feeding Eluana Englaro, in a vegetative state following a 1992 car crash, a "necessary act".

It said a decision to remove the tube required "valuations of life and death that are rooted in concepts of an ethical or religious nature, which are extrajudicial," and said that the issue was also outside the powers of Ms Englaro's father.

Some of the doctors looking after 35-year-old Ms Englaro at a hospital in Lecco, a lakeside town in Northern Italy, have said she reacts to stimulus. Her father Beppino believes his daughter would want to die.

"Eluana has clearly expressed the wish to die in case of an accident that left her in a coma or a vegetative state," he said some weeks ago.