A French doctor accused of intentionally poisoning 30 child and adult patients, 12 of whom died, went on trial Monday, saying before the hearing he wasn’t responsible for the “distress” of his alleged victims and their families.
Frederic Pechier, 53, worked as an anaesthetist at two clinics in the eastern city of Besancon when patients went into cardiac arrest in suspicious circumstances between 2008 to 2017. Twelve couldn’t be resuscitated.
He’s accused of triggering heart attacks in patients so he could show off his resuscitation skills and discredit co-workers.
ROMEO BOETZLE/AFP via Getty Images
Pechier’s youngest alleged victim, a four-year-old identified as Teddy, survived two cardiac arrests during a routine tonsil operation in 2016. The doctor’s oldest alleged victim was 89.
The trial caps an eight-year investigation that stunned the medical community. Pechier has denied the charges.
Pechier was greeted on his arrival at the court by several relatives, including one who shouted: “Come on, Fredo.”
“It’s necessary to lay all the cards on the table,” Pechier told broadcaster RTL earlier Monday, adding that he had “strong arguments” in his defense.
Asked about the suffering of the families who will attend the trial, expected to last until December, Pechier replied, “I understand it completely, but on the other hand, I am not responsible for their distress.”
Pechier, a father of three, faces life imprisonment if convicted. He isn’t currently in custody but is under judicial supervision, an alternative to pre-trial detention.
“Waiting for this for 17 years,” victim’s daughter says
Pechier hasn’t practiced medicine since 2017, even though he was authorized to work in 2023 as long as he doesn’t come into contact with patients.
“I’ve been waiting for this for 17 years,” said Amandine Iehlen, whose 53-year-old father died of cardiac arrest during kidney surgery in 2008.
An autopsy revealed an overdose of lidocaine, a local anesthetic.
Prosecutor Etienne Manteaux has said the case is “unprecedented in French legal history.”
SEBASTIEN BOZON / AFP via Getty Images 
An investigation was opened in 2017 after suspicious cardiac arrests during operations on patients considered low-risk.
Pechier is suspected of tampering with his colleagues’ paracetamol bags or anaesthesia pouches to create operating room emergencies where he could intervene to show off his resuscitating talents.
“What he is accused of is poisoning healthy patients in order to harm colleagues with whom he was in conflict,” Manteaux said.
“Frederic Pechier was the first responder when cardiac arrest occurred,” he added. “He always had a solution.”
Pechier has blamed “medical errors” by his colleagues for most of the poisonings.
Pechier a “star” or a criminal?
Some colleagues described Pechier 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.”
Over the course of the inquiry, investigators examined more than 70 reports of “serious adverse events,” medical jargon for unexpected complications or deaths among patients.
The cases of 30 patients who suffered cardiac arrest during surgery at the Saint-Vincent Clinic and the Franche-Comte Polyclinic made it to trial.
“It’s very easy to accuse people, it’s harder to prove things,” one of Pechier’s lawyers, Randall Schwerdorffer, told reporters.
More than 150 civil parties will be represented at the trial.
For the first two weeks, the court will examine Pechier’s most recent cases, those that caused investigators’ suspicions and led to the his being placed under investigation in 2017.
Afterwards each of the poisonings attributed to the doctor will be examined.
“It’s going to be a legal marathon, but we’re ready,” Stephane Giuranna, a lawyer for several civil parties, told AFP. “All roads lead to Pechier.”
