Doctor described as “star anesthetist” gets life sentence in France for poisoning 30 patients, killing 12

A French court on Thursday sentenced a doctor to life in jail for poisoning 30 child and adult patients, 12 of whom died, reportedly in an attempt to discredit coworkers.

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

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

“You will be incarcerated immediately,” presiding judge Delphine Thibierge said.

Pechier, who has denied wrongdoing and had not been detained since the start of the probe, appeared unmoved. Members of his family broke down in tears.

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

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

During the more than three-month trial, prosecutors called for Pechier to be jailed for life, saying he “used medicine to kill.”

They say he contaminated IV bags with potassium, local anaesthetics, adrenaline, and even an anticoagulant to trigger cardiac arrest or haemorrhaging in patients being treated by colleagues.

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

Pechier had argued during the probe that the majority of poisonings were the result of “medical errors” made by his colleagues.

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

“I am 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 cannot trust a doctor who, at one point, has been labeled a poisoner. … My family is broken and I am afraid for my children.”

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

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

One colleague described Pechier as a very good doctor with an “oversized ego.”

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

In tears during the trial earlier this month, Pechier recounted trying to kill himself in 2021.

The verdict comes after a court in May sentenced retired doctor Joel Le Scouarnec to 20 years in prison after he confessed to sexually abusing or raping 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 sounding the alarm.