Berlin palliative care doctor jailed for life after murdering 15 patients

A Berlin court has sentenced a 41-year-old German doctor to life in prison for killing 15 palliative care patients. Prosecutors are investigating 76 further cases.

Berlin doctor sentenced to life for killing 15 palliative care patients

A German palliative care doctor has been handed a life sentence after a Berlin court found him guilty of murdering 15 patients, bbc.com reports.

The 41-year-old, identified only as Johannes M. under German privacy law, was convicted of killing 12 women and three men between September 2021 and July 2024. His victims ranged in age from 25 to 94. All were critically ill, but the court heard that none faced imminent death.

During home visits, the doctor administered lethal combinations of medicines without the patients' consent, prosecutors said. On several occasions he set fires to conceal the killings.

In July 2024, days before his arrest, he killed two patients in a single day — a 75-year-old man at his home in central Berlin and, hours later, a 76-year-old woman in a neighbouring district. Prosecutors said he attempted to burn down the woman's house but failed.

The trial ran for approximately one year, during much of which the doctor remained silent. Last month he confessed to having "killed people" — twelve of his severely ill patients, he specified. He told the court he had convinced himself he was acting in their best interests, sparing them "suffering and infirmity." "Throughout it all, I thought this was the best thing for everyone," he said. He also offered an apology for the suffering he had caused.

Prosecutors are currently investigating 76 further cases involving the doctor. German media have reported that, if those cases are proven, the total could place this among the largest instances of serial murder in German history. The doctor told the court he would "get involved much earlier in the forthcoming proceedings."

Relatives of the victims gave testimony that laid bare the human cost of the crimes. The mother of the youngest victim — a 25-year-old woman who died in 2021 — broke down in tears. "She never said she didn't want to live anymore," she said. The son of a 72-year-old woman who died in 2024 recalled that his mother had planned a trip to the Baltic Sea with her sister. "My mother wanted to keep on living," he said.

The court ruled that the doctor's culpability was particularly grave. In addition to the life sentence, it ordered preventive detention to follow his imprisonment and imposed a permanent ban on him practising medicine.

Source: Google News MT