A court in France has handed a life sentence to a doctor convicted of poisoning 30 adult and child patients, resulting in 12 deaths, reportedly in a bid to undermine colleagues.
Frederic Pechier, 53, was employed as an anaesthetist at two medical clinics in the eastern city of Besancon, where patients suffered unexplained cardiac arrests between 2008 and 2017. Twelve of those patients could not be revived, reports RTE.
The youngest victim, four-year-old Teddy, survived two cardiac arrests during a routine tonsil operation in 2016, while the oldest patient affected was aged 89.
“You will be incarcerated immediately,” presiding judge Delphine Thibierge said, reports RTE.
Pechier, who has consistently denied any wrongdoing and had remained at liberty since the investigation began, showed little reaction in court, while members of his family were visibly distressed.
A lawyer from the firm representing him, Ornella Spatafora, said an appeal would be lodged, reports RTE.
The investigation began in 2017 after a series of suspicious cardiac arrests occurred during operations on patients who were considered low-risk.
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During the trial, which lasted more than three months, prosecutors sought a life sentence, telling the court that Pechier had “used medicine to kill”, reports RTE.
They alleged he tainted IV bags with substances including potassium, local anaesthetics, adrenaline and even an anticoagulant, causing cardiac arrest or haemorrhaging in patients treated by his colleagues.
Prosecutors said his motive was to “psychologically hurt” colleagues he was in conflict with and to “feed his thirst for power”, reports RTE.
Pechier claimed during the investigation that most of the poisonings were the result of “medical errors” made by other doctors.
He acknowledged during the trial that someone had been poisoning patients in one of the clinics where he worked, but insisted it was not him, reports RTE.
“I am not a poisoner,” he said, reports RTE.
One colleague described Pechier as a highly competent doctor but said he had an “oversized ego”, reports RTE.
The verdict follows a ruling in May in which a French court sentenced retired doctor Joel Le Scouarnec to 20 years in prison after he admitted sexually abusing or raping 298 patients, most of them children, between 1989 and 2014.
That case prompted questions about how he was allowed to continue practising until retirement, despite at least one colleague raising concerns, reports RTE.
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