Woman loses battle to turn dead dad into diamond
BERLIN (Reuters) - A German woman's plan to turn her dead father's ashes into a diamond was thwarted Tuesday by her grandmother.
A district court in Wiesbaden ruled the 19-year-old could not take the cremated remains to Switzerland where a company creates synthetic diamonds from ashes.
"The daughter of the deceased could not provide sufficient proof that it was his final wish to be pressed into a diamond," the court in western Germany said, ruling in favor of his 86-year-old mother.
The court said the daughter's views on the care of the remains took precedence over the wishes of the dead man's mother but ruled that any decision had to be in accordance with the expressed wishes of the deceased.
The ashes are placed in a press under intense pressure and heat, replicating the forces that create a natural diamond, over a period of several months. Synthetic diamonds have been manufactured from carbon since the mid-1950s.
