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A French doctor goes to trial next week accused of intentionally poisoning 30 children and adult patients, 12 of whom died, in an alleged attempt to show their resuscitation skills and discredit the co -workers.

Frederic Pechier, 53, worked as an anesthetist in two clinics in the eastern city of Besancon, when patients entered into cardiac arrest in suspicious circumstances between 2008 and 2017. Twelve could not be resurrected.

The alleged younger victim of Pechier, Teddy, 4, survived two cardiac arrests during a routine tonsil surgery in 2016. The presumed victim of the doctor was 89 years old.

The trial, which begins in Besancon on September 8 and will last until December, limits a seven -year investigation that surprised the medical community.

The procedures occur after a court in May sentenced to the retired doctor Joel Le Scuarc Until 20 years in prison after confessing to sexually abuse or violate 298 patients, most of them children, between 1989 and 2014.

Pechier, a father of three children who has been forbidden to practice medicine, faces life imprisonment if he is convicted. He has denied the charges.

Controversially, Pechier is not currently behind bars and is under judicial supervision, an alternative to the prior detention.

“I have been waiting for this for 17 years,” said Amandine Iehlen, whose 53 -year -old father died of cardiac arrest during renal surgery in 2008.

An autopsy revealed an overdose of lidocaine, a local anesthetic.

Prosecutor Etienne Manteaux has said that the case had no precedents in French legal history. “

Manteaux said previously that Pechier had been “the common denominator” in each fatal incident, the BBC reported.

“He was more frequently close to the operational theater” when the cases occurred, said Manteaux, and had made a rapid diagnosis on what measures to take, “even when nothing allowed anyone to suspect a potassium overdose or local anesthesia.”

Doctor described as a “star anesthetist”

An investigation was launched in 2017 after suspicious cardiac deliveries during operations in patients considered low risk.

It is suspected that Pechier manipulates the paracetamol bags or the anesthesia bags of his colleagues to create emergencies of the operating room where he could intervene to show his supposed resurrected talents.

“What is accused of is poisoning healthy patients to damage colleagues with whom he was in conflict,” said Manteaux.

“Frederic Pechier was the first responder when a cardiac arrest occurred,” he added. “He always had a solution.”

Pechier has argued that most intoxications were the result of “medical errors” committed by their colleagues.

“I am accused of heinous crimes that I did not commit,” he said in 2017.

“Whatever the result of all this, my career is over,” Pechier told journalists at a press conference in 2019, BBC News reported. “You can’t trust a doctor who, at one time, has been labeled as poisoner … My family is broken and I’m afraid for my children.”

Some colleagues described the doctor as a “star anesthetist”, while others said he found himself as arrogant and manipulative.

A co -worker said that Pechier was “sure he was the best” and liked to “think about himself as a News.”

In the course of seven -year research, researchers examined more than 70 reports of “serious adverse events”, medical jargon for unexpected complications or deaths among patients.

The cases of 30 patients who suffered a cardiac arrest during surgery at the Saint-Vincent clinic and the Franche-Comte polyclinic came to trial.

The investigation was launched in January 2017, after a 36 -year -old woman suffered suspicious cardiac arrest during an operation.

The suspicion quickly fell on Pechier, who was arrested and accused two months later.

Pechier “intends to demonstrate his innocence in this case,” his defense team told the News.

Last month, Le Monde reported that one of Pechier’s lawyers withdrew from the case, citing insufficient compensation.

“Vertiginous case”

An evaluation of criminal psychology of the accused, carried out in 2019 and strongly criticized by its defense lawyers, said a “controlling personality” and “perverse features.”

Other psychological and psychiatric evaluations have not identified any pathology or particular personality disorder, describing Pechier as an intelligent man.

It is also believed that it suffers from depression.

In 2014, he tried to commit suicide, and in 2021, he fell from the window at his parents’ house in a drunk state.

More than 150 civil parties, including a union for anesthesists, will be represented in the trial.

It is a “vertiginous case” due to its “scale, duration and technical complexity,” said Frederic Bern, one of the 55 lawyers representing the victims.

Berna said she doubted the court listened to “sincere and honest explanations of Pechier.”

“It really is someone who does not take for an answer and constantly tries to impose his opinion by force,” Berna said.

Before the trial, Pechier said that “he was not particularly anxious.”

“I have to fight for the last time to put this to an end,” he told the BFMTV issuer.

“I’m not tired. I’m not angry. I just want people to listen once,” he said.

• France