ROME (AP) – An Italian medical board said Thursday it will investigate a doctor for disconnecting the respirator of a paralyzed man who asked to be allowed to die.

Mario Riccio last week assisted in the death of Piergiorgio Welby, a 60-year-old writer with muscular dystrophy who was at the center of a right-to-die campaign in this predominantly Roman Catholic country. Disciplinary action against Riccio could range from a warning to barring him from the medical profession, said officials at the board of physicians in the northern Italian city of Cremona, where the anesthesiologist is based.

Board President Mario Bianchi questioned Riccio until late Wednesday before announcing he would put the case to the board’s disciplinary commission. Riccio said Bianchi was right to send the case to the commission.

Riccio and Welby’s family have said decision to disconnect the respirator conformed with a patient’s constitutional right to refuse treatment. Anti-euthanasia campaigners and some conservative politicians have described Welby’s death as murder.

Euthanasia is illegal in Italy, and the Vatican, which wields influence over the country’s political and social life, staunchly opposes the practice. Welby was mourned Sunday at a lay funeral in Rome after Church officials denied him a religious ceremony.

Before Riccio contacted him and volunteered to pull the plug, Welby had sought a court order to force his doctors to disconnect the respirator.

A Rome judge recognized Welby’s right to refuse treatment – but ruled there is no law that could force a doctor to take measures that would lead to a patient’s death, even at the patient’s request.