A former French anaesthetist accused of fatally poisoning 12 patients to ‘showcase his resuscitation skills’ insisted ‘I’m not a poisoner’ in court.
Frédéric Péchier allegedly polluted the IV bags of dozens of individuals at two clinics in Besançon between 2008 and 2017.
Prosecutors Thérèse Brunisso and Christine de Curraize claim the doctor would introduce potassium, local anaesthetics, adrenaline, or heparin into IV bags, which were then given to patients.
The poisoned bags would then trigger cardiac arrests or haemorrhages, the court heard.
Throughout his trial, which first began in September, Péchier has fiercely denied the allegations made against him.
Before the proceedings closed today, Dr Péchier, who claims he has respected his oath as a health skilled, said: ‘I’ll say it and all the time will say it: no, I’m not a poisoner.
‘For eight years, I even have been fighting against being portrayed as a poisoner.’
He was first investigated in 2017, when an otherwise healthy 36-year-old patient had surgery on her spine, where her heart stopped beating.
After an intensive care physician didn’t revive her, Dr Péchier gave her an injection, and the patient went right into a coma.
Potassium concentrations 100 times higher than the expected dose were shown within the intravenous drugs used to treat her, which raised the alarm to prosecutors.
Inside a number of days, one other incident happened where the anaesthetist claimed to have found three bags of paracetamol that had been tampered with after he had given a general anaesthetic.
Other events dating back to 2008, involving patients as young as 4 and as old as 89, were also investigated.
In 2009, three patients with no history of heart disease needed to be resuscitated on the Franche-Comté Polyclinic during minor operations.
The primary fatality was 53-year-old Damien Iehlen in October 2008, who died from cardiac arrest during a routine kidney operation.
A potentially lethal dose of the drug lidocaine was present in tests after his death.
Prosecutors allege that Dr Péchier was the ‘common denominator’ in all the poisoning cases.
For greater than three months, the Doubs Assize Court has heard police investigations, medical expertise, and moving testimonies of the alleged victims and their families.
The prosecution is searching for life imprisonment for Péchier, with a minimum of twenty-two years, portraying him as a ‘serial killer’, guilty of getting ‘transformed a clinic right into a cemetery.’
They’ve also asserted that the accused is ‘certainly one of the best criminals in history’ who ‘used medicine to kill.’
Nonetheless, his defence lawyer, Randall Schwerdorffer, is attempting to sow doubt within the jury’s mind about his client’s guilt in ‘the trial of a lifetime’ and needs to try to acquire an acquittal.
Referring to the dearth of empathy the doctor has been accused of, the lawyer said: ‘The query isn’t: ‘Will we like Frédéric Péchier, will we not like him, does he cry or does he not cry?’
He insisted that ‘we want evidence’ as ‘we will not be here to prejudge someone, we’re here to guage them.’
Dr Péchier’s verdict is anticipated to be delivered by Friday.
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