Doctor

A German doctor went to trial on Monday accused of Kill 15 patients with lethal injections and acting as “master of life and death” about those under their care.

The 40 -year -old Palliative care specialisT, appointed by the German media such as Johannes M., he alleges that he killed 12 women and three men between September 2021 and July 2024 while working in Berlin.

The doctor is accused of injecting the victims, between 25 and 94, with mortal cocktails of sedatives and, in some cases, setting their homes in an attempt to cover up their crimes.

The defendant had “visited his patients under the pretext of providing medical care,” said prosecutor Philipp Meyhoefer at the opening of the trial in the State Court of Berlin.

Johannes M. had organized “home visits, already with the intention of killing” and exploited the confidence of his patients in him as a doctor, Meyhoefer said.

“He acted without taking into account life … and behaved as the master of life and death.”

A co -worker gave the alarm for the first time about Johannes M. last July after suspecting that many of his patients had died in fires, according to the Die Zeit newspaper.

He was arrested in August, and prosecutors initially linked him with Four deaths.

But subsequent investigations discovered a lot of Other suspicious casesand in April, prosecutors accused Johannes M. of 15 positions of murder.

Prosecutors and the police said that it is said that the defendant had no reason beyond death, and that the acts of the suspect comply with the legal definition of “lust for murder.”

“Why do people kill?”

96 other cases were still being investigated, said a prosecutor’s spokesman to the News, including the death of the mother -in -law of Johannes M.

She had been suffering from cancer and mysteriously died the same weekend as Johannes M. and her wife went to visit her in Poland in early 2024, according to media reports.

According to the reports, the suspect was formed as a radiologist and general practitioner before specializing in palliative care.

According to Die Zeit, he presented a doctoral thesis in 2013 investigating the reasons behind a series of murders in Frankfurt, who opened with the words “Why do people kill?”

The doctor supposedly “administered an anesthetic and a muscle relaxant to his patients without their knowledge or consent,” said Berlin prosecutor’s office in a statement. “The latter paralyzed the respiratory muscles, which led to respiratory arrest and death in a matter of minutes.”

In five cases, Johannes M. supposedly burned the victims’s apartments after administering the injections.

On one occasion, he is accused of killing two patients the same day.

On the morning of July 8, 2024, he allegedly killed a 75 -year -old man at his home in the Berlin district of Kreuzberg.

“A few hours later,” it is said that he attacked again, killing a 76 -year -old woman in the neighboring district of Neukoelln.

Prosecutors say that a fire began in the woman’s apartment, but went out.

“When he realized this, he allegedly informed a relative of the woman and said he was standing in front of his department and that no one was responding to the bell,” prosecutors said.

In another case, Johannes M. “falsely said the resuscitation efforts” on a 56 -year -old victim, who was initially kept alive by rescuers but died three days later in the hospital.

Echoes of other cases

The case recalls that of the notorious German nurse Niels Hogelwho was given a life imprisonment in 2019 for killing 85 patients.

HOEGEL, which is believed to be modern Germany more prolific serial killerhospital patients with lethal injections between 2000 and 2005, before they were finally caught in the law.

More recently, a 27 -year -old nurse received a life imprisonment in 2023 for killing two patients deliberately managing non -described medications.

In March, another nurse was judged in Aachen accused of injecting 26 patients with large doses of sedatives or analgesics, which resulted in nine deaths.

Last week, the German police revealed that they are investigating another doctor suspected of killing several mainly elderly patients.

The investigators are “reviewing” the deaths linked to the doctor of the city of Pinneberg in northern Germany, on the outskirts of Hamburg, police and prosecutors said.

In England, neonatal nurse Lucy Letby is fulfilling life imprisonment to killing seven babies and trying to kill others. On July 1, three former high -level leaders in the hospital where he worked. arrested In suspicion of severe negligence homicide.

• Murder
• Germany