A French court on Thursday sentenced Dr. Frederic Pechier, 53, to life in prison for poisoning 30 patients, 12 of whom died, in what prosecutors described as an attempt to discredit colleagues.
Pechier, an anaesthetist at two clinics in Besançon, was accused of contaminating IV bags with potassium, local anaesthetics, adrenaline, and anticoagulants to trigger cardiac arrest or hemorrhaging between 2008 and 2017. His youngest alleged victim, four-year-old Teddy, survived two cardiac arrests during routine tonsil surgery in 2016, while his oldest was 89.
Presiding judge Delphine Thibierge ordered Pechier’s immediate incarceration. The doctor, who denied wrongdoing throughout the investigation, appeared unmoved by the verdict.
Prosecutors told the court that Pechier sought to “psychologically hurt” colleagues with whom he was in conflict and “feed his thirst for power.” Pechier claimed most of the poisonings were “medical errors” by other staff and admitted only that there had been a person poisoning patients at one clinic—but denied being responsible.
Colleagues described him as a skilled doctor with an “oversized ego.” During the trial, Pechier revealed he had attempted suicide in 2021.
The investigation began in 2017 after a series of suspicious cardiac arrests among low-risk patients. The trial lasted over three months, during which prosecutors described Pechier as someone who “used medicine to kill.”
The case follows other alarming incidents involving medical professionals in Europe. In May, retired French doctor Joel Le Scouarnec was sentenced to 20 years for sexually abusing or raping 298 patients, mostly children, between 1989 and 2014.
In Berlin, a 40-year-old palliative care doctor, identified by German media as Johannes M., recently went on trial accused of killing 15 patients with lethal injections between September 2021 and July 2024. Prosecutors allege he injected sedatives into victims aged 25 to 94 and set some homes on fire to conceal his crimes.
A co-worker raised concerns last July after noticing numerous patient deaths in suspicious fires. Johannes M. was arrested in August, initially linked to four deaths, but investigations later tied him to 15 murders. Prosecutors described him as having “acted with disregard for life… behaving as the master of life and death.”
