The German doctor was tried on Berlin on Monday and accused of killing 15 patients who were receiving palliative care.
The prosecutor’s office brought charges against the 40-year-old doctor “for 15 count murders with planned malicious intent and other basic motives” before the Berlin provincial court. The prosecutor’s office is calling for not only convictions and discoveries of “particularly serious” guilt, but also a lifetime ban on medical practice and subsequent preventive detention.
The murder charge is sentenced to the greatest life sentence in prison. If the court establishes that the defendant is particularly severely guilty, it means that he is not eligible for release after 15 years, as in the usual case of Germany.
Alongside the trial, the prosecutor’s office is investigating dozens of other suspicious cases in separate proceedings.
The man, who has been identified only as Johannes M, in line with German privacy rules, is accused of trying to hide evidence of the murder by launching a fire in the victim’s home. He has been in custody since August 6th.
The doctor was part of the end-of-life care team of nursing services in the German capital, initially suspected of the deaths of just four patients. That number has creeped up high since last summer, and prosecutors are now accusing him of 15 deaths between September 22nd and July 24th, 2021.
The ages of the victims ranged from 25 to 94. Most died in their own homes.
The doctors are said to have given patients anesthetics and muscle relaxants without their knowledge or consent. Drug cocktails are said to have subsequently paralyzed the respiratory muscles. The breathing arrest and death continued within minutes, according to prosecutors.
The doctors disagreed with an interview with a psychiatry expert prior to the trial, the German news agency DPA reported. Therefore, experts observe the defendant’s actions in court and hear statements from witnesses to give an assessment of the man’s personality and negligence.
So far, it is unclear what motives for palliative care physicians have been. All of the victims named in the indictment were seriously ill, but their deaths were not imminent.
According to the DPA, the defendant will not make a statement to the court for the time being, his defense attorney Christophe Stoll said.
The court initially scheduled 35 trial dates for the case until January 28, 2026. According to the court, 13 parents of the deceased are represented as the joint Plains. Each case has several witnesses, with a total of about 150 people available to hear in court, the DPA reported.
Among the cases currently being heard in court are those of a 56-year-old woman who passed away in September.
On September 5th, doctors allegedly administered anesthetics and muscle relaxants to a woman who had been physically weakened at home without needing medical care. However, fearing the discovery, he made an emergency call and mistakenly stated that he had found the woman in a “condition in which he needed to be resuscitated.” Rescue workers were able to revive the woman and took her to the hospital, the DPA reported.
The indictment said “in the continuation of his plan of action and in the knowledge of the living will of the injured party.” With the consent of both daughters, the ventilation was stopped and the woman died at a hospital in Berlin on September 8th.
Further suspicions of death continue to be investigated.
The investigation team, specially established in the murder division of the Berlin Criminal Police Department and the Berlin Public Prosecutor’s Office, investigated a total of 395 cases. In 95 of these cases, initial suspicion was confirmed and preliminary procedures were initiated. In five cases, the initial suspicion has not been demonstrated.
In 75 cases, investigations are underway through individual procedures. Prosecutors said five excavations are still planned for this individual process.
Among the cases still under investigation, the death of the doctor’s stepmother who suffered from cancer, said court spokesman Sebastian Beaner. Local media reported that she died during a doctor’s visit.
In 2019, a German nurse who intentionally caused cardiac arrest and killed 87 patients was sentenced to life in prison.
Earlier this month, German investigators in the town of the northern town said they were investigating cases of doctors who are suspected of killing several patients.
