French anesthetist Frédéric Péchier sentenced to life for poisoning 30 patients in Besançon; 12 died
A French court has sentenced anesthetist Frédéric Péchier to life in prison for poisoning 30 child and adult patients over nearly a decade, 12 of whom died, in a case that shocked France’s medical community and raised fresh questions about hospital oversight.
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Péchier, 53, worked at two private clinics in the eastern city of Besançon between 2008 and 2017, where multiple low-risk patients suffered sudden cardiac arrests under suspicious circumstances. Twelve could not be resuscitated. Presiding judge Delphine Thibierge ordered him taken into custody immediately after the verdict, telling him, “You will be incarcerated immediately.”
A lawyer from his defense team, Ornella Spatafora, said Péchier would appeal. The life sentence followed a trial lasting more than three months, during which prosecutors argued Péchier “used medicine to kill,” accusing him of tampering with intravenous bags destined for patients being treated by colleagues.
Investigators opened the case in 2017 after a pattern of unexplained cardiac arrests emerged among patients deemed low-risk. Prosecutors said Péchier contaminated IV bags with potassium, local anesthetics, adrenaline and even an anticoagulant, inducing cardiac arrest or hemorrhaging. They alleged his aim was to trigger emergencies that would allow him to intervene dramatically and discredit co-workers with whom he was in conflict, while feeding what they described as a thirst for power.
Péchier denied being the perpetrator. He argued during the investigation that most of the poisonings were “medical errors” by colleagues. On the stand, he acknowledged that someone had been poisoning patients at one of the clinics but insisted it was not him, telling the court, “I am not a poisoner.” One former colleague depicted him as a highly skilled doctor with an “oversized ego.”
The victims ranged widely in age and procedure. The youngest, 4-year-old Teddy, survived two cardiac arrests during routine tonsil surgery in 2016. The oldest known victim was 89. The court did not immediately release a detailed breakdown of the charges by case, but prosecutors had sought the maximum penalty, underscoring the scale and gravity of the pattern they presented.
The case has reignited debate in France about how medical institutions detect and respond to atypical complications and internal warnings. It follows another high-profile scandal: In May, a court sentenced retired doctor Joël 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—despite at least one colleague having raised concerns during his career.
In Besançon, many families of Péchier’s patients waited years for answers as the investigation expanded and forensic reviews revisited doses and drugs recorded before operations. Prosecutors said the toxic mix of substances they described in court could explain the cascade of cardiac arrests among patients who were otherwise stable.
With the life sentence now imposed, the case moves to the appeals phase. Péchier remains in custody as his lawyers prepare their challenge, while families and the medical staff drawn into the trial look to France’s higher courts for a final resolution in one of the country’s most disturbing medical crimes.
By Abdiwahab Ahmed
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
