Authorities in Berlin have filed charges against a physician accused of giving palliative patients under his care lethal doses of various medications, resulting in 15 counts of murder.
The prosecution is also pursuing a lifelong professional ban for the 40-year-old suspect, who has been in custody since August 2024 and has worked across several German states.
While the suspect’s name has not been disclosed in accordance with German privacy regulations, prosecutors report that he has denied the allegations.
Initially, he was linked to four patient deaths last year, with prosecutors claiming he attempted to conceal his involvement by setting fire to the victims’ apartments.
A specialized investigative team has been established to scrutinize his patient records, and additional exhumations are scheduled.
Prosecutors allege that the doctor administered an anesthetic followed by a muscle relaxant to palliative patients who were not actively dying, without their knowledge or consent.
The muscle relaxant reportedly “paralyzed the respiratory muscles, leading to respiratory arrest and death within minutes”.
The victims, who were receiving care at the time, ranged in age from 25 to 94 years.
In one instance, the suspect is accused of killing two patients on the same day.
On the morning of 8 July 2024, he allegedly murdered a 75-year-old man in his residence located in Berlin’s central Kreuzberg district.
“A few hours later,” he is claimed to have repeated the act, taking the life of a 76-year-old woman in the nearby Neukölln district.
Prosecutors indicated that the suspect’s attempt to destroy evidence by setting fire to the crime scene “failed” when the flames did not ignite.
“Upon realizing this, he reportedly contacted a relative of the woman, asserting that he was outside her apartment and that no one answered when he rang the bell,” they stated.
In another instance, the suspect allegedly called emergency services himself “out of fear of being caught”.
He “falsely claimed to have initiated resuscitation efforts” on the 56-year-old victim, who was initially stabilized by rescuers but ultimately succumbed three days later in the hospital.
A special investigative team identified a total of 395 suspicious cases warranting re-evaluation in light of the allegations against the doctor.
In 95 of these cases, an initial suspicion was substantiated, leading to the initiation of preliminary proceedings.
Another 75 cases are still under review.
Thus far, 12 exhumations have been conducted, five of which pertained to the victims identified in the current charges.
Additional exhumations are set to take place shortly.
The accusations against this doctor parallel another ongoing trial in Germany, where a nurse faces charges for the murder of nine patients in palliative care.
The nurse, whose trial began in March, is accused of administering significant doses of sedatives or painkillers to 26 patients, resulting in nine deaths.
Prosecutors handling the case in Aachen, a city in western Germany, stated that the suspect was driven by a desire to lessen his workload during night shifts and regarded himself as the “master of life and death”.
