Agency Report –
A nurse charged with murdering nine patients through overdoses went on trial in the western German city of Aachen on Monday.
The 44-year-old man faces nine counts of murder and 34 counts of attempted murder.
The crimes are alleged to have taken place in a hospital in Würselen, in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia, between December 2023 and May 2024.
According to the indictment, the nurse is said to have injected a total of 26 patients in the palliative care ward with heavily sedating medication, at times in combination with painkillers and in some cases multiple times.
Nine patients ultimately died as a result.
On the first day of the trial at the Aachen Regional Court, prosecutor Marius Saalmann alleged the nurse sought to make himself “lord over life and death” as he wanted to minimize his workload.
Saalmann further accused the nurse of developing a “a self-image of superiority” in his work at the hospital, and of having “denied the patients’ right to life.”
“He felt annoyed and disturbed by the terminally ill patients and their needs,” the prosecutor alleged. “For him, they were only on the palliative care ward to die.”
The nurse attended the trial, following the prosecutor’s statements closely without making a plea.
An investigation was initially launched after irregularities were discovered at the hospital.
There have been five exhumations so far to autopsy the dead, said a spokeswoman for the public prosecutor’s office in Aachen.
Prosecutors are investigating whether there are more linked cases from the nurse’s previous work in Cologne.
The trial is scheduled to run until June, with dozens of witnesses expected to testify, including the nurse’s former colleagues and managers, as well as medical experts.
Several relatives of the victims are co-plaintiffs in the case.
Ultimately, the trial should “remove any uncertainty about what happened,” said judge Markus Vogt.
By Petra Albers and Christoph Driessen
