A Belgian court on Friday cleared three doctors accused of murder for helping a woman end her life, in the country’s first criminal case concerning euthanasia.

The doctors were accused of unlawfully poisoning 38-year-old Tine Nys in April 2010 because she did not fulfil the conditions to be euthanised. They were the first doctors to go on trial for euthanasia in Belgium since it legalised the practice in 2002.

A 12-member jury returned to deliver their verdicts of not guilty in the early hours of Friday, after about eight hours of deliberations, said prosecutors in the city of Ghent, where the trial was held.

The three accused, whose signatures were required for the procedure, were the doctor who administered the lethal injection, Ms Nys’s former GP and a psychiatrist.