Piergiorgio Welby, the terminally ill Italian man with muscular dystrophy who in an open letter to the Italian president pleaded for his right to die, has died.

A few days before Christmas, after a long battle against the illness, he was sedated by an anaesthetist, who unplugged the mechanical ventilator that had kept him alive against his will.

“My dream, my desire, my request—which I want to put to any authority, from political to judicial ones—is today in my mind more clear and precise than ever: being able to obtain euthanasia,” Mr …