A nurse was convicted yesterday and sentenced to life in prison for killing 28 of his patients at a hospital in southern Germany.
Stephan Letter was found guilty of 12 counts of murder, 15 of manslaughter and one of mercy killing in what has been described as Germany's biggest series of killings since World War II.
According to the evidence presented at his nine-month trial, Letter, 28, killed his victims by injecting them with a cocktail of drugs. Letter testified at the start of his trial in February that he had killed patients, but said he could not remember how many.
Letter's attorney, Juergen Fischer, had argued that his client was motivated by compassion for seriously ill patients.
Presiding Judge Harry Rechner said Letter was an active proponent of assisted suicide and appeared to want to put an end to what he deemed to be senseless suffering.
But, Rechner told the state court in Kempten, the evidence showed he "was interested, at best, superficially in the state of health of the patients."
The deaths at the hospital in Sonthofen, southwest of Munich, began in February 2003, less than a month after the nurse started working there. The last suspicious death occurred in July 2004, just before his arrest.
The patients were between 40 and 94 years old, though most were older than 75. They included two gravely ill women, but not all were seriously sick, officials said.
"The defendant ... killed patients with whom he was barely familiar, patients who had only been in the clinic for a few hours, or those who were on the road to recovery," the court said.
Police tracked down the nurse as they investigated reports that drugs were missing and compared the times when patients died with the hours he worked.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese