A court in the German city of Aachen has sentenced a 40-year-old palliative care nurse to life in prison for the murder of 10 patients and attempted murder of 27 others, DW reported.
Prosecutors said that the defendant played “master of life and death” over patients who needed intensive attention and that he showed little empathy for those requiring higher levels of care, DW reported.
They acknowledged the has a personality disorder but argued that he had deliberately injected elderly patients with extremely high doses of medication in order to lighten his workload during night shifts.
Because a “high severity of guilt” was determined by the courts, the nurse will not be eligible for parole for at least 15 years.
The sentence adds to Germany’s record of prosecutions of medical staff for lethal misconduct and underlines how the country’s legal system uses the “particular severity” finding to restrict early release in cases deemed especially grave, DW reported. Authorities did not immediately release the man’s name under German privacy rules.
A global media for the latest news, entertainment, music fashion, and more.
