Doctor described as

A French court sentenced a doctor to life in prison on Thursday for poisoning of 30 children and adult patients12 of whom died, apparently in an attempt to discredit their co-workers.

Frederic PechierThe 53-year-old was working as an anesthetist in two clinics in the eastern city of Besançon when patients went into cardiac arrest under suspicious circumstances between 2008 and 2017. Twelve of them could not be revived.

Pechier’s youngest victim, 4-year-old Teddy, survived two cardiac arrests during routine tonsil surgery in 2016. The oldest victim was 89 years old.

“He will be jailed immediately,” said Judge Delphine Thibierge.

Pechier, who has denied any wrongdoing and has not been arrested since the investigation began, was unmoved. His family members burst into tears.

A lawyer from the firm representing him, Ornella Spatafora, said she would appeal.

An investigation was launched in 2017, after suspected cardiac arrests were recorded during operations in patients considered low risk.

During the trial that lasted more than three months, prosecutors asked that Pechier be sentenced to life in prison, alleging that he “used medicine to kill.”

They say he contaminated intravenous bags with potassium, local anesthetics, adrenaline and even an anticoagulant to cause cardiac arrest or bleeding in patients treated by colleagues.

His goal, prosecutors said, was to “psychologically hurt” caregivers with whom he was in conflict and “feed his thirst for power.”

Pechier had maintained during the investigation that most of the poisonings were due to “medical errors” committed by his colleagues.

During the trial he admitted that in one of the two clinics where he worked there was a person poisoning patients, but he said it was not him.

“I’m not a poisoner,” he said.

“Whatever the outcome of all this, my career is over,” Pechier told reporters at a press conference in 2019, BBC News reported. “You can’t trust a doctor who, at one point, has been labeled a poisoner… My family is devastated and I fear for my children.”

Some colleagues described the doctor as a “star anaesthetist”, while others said he seemed arrogant and manipulative.

A co-worker claimed that Pechier was “sure he was the best” and liked to “think of himself as Zorro.”

A colleague described Pechier as a very good doctor with a “huge ego.”

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

Through tears during the trial earlier this month, Pechier said he attempted suicide in 2021.

The verdict comes after a court convicted in May Retired doctor Joel Le Scouarnec to 20 years in prison after confessing to having sexually abused or raped 298 patients, most of them children, between 1989 and 2014.

That case raised questions about how he was allowed to continue practicing until retirement despite at least one colleague raising the alarm.