Frederic PechierBesançon, France, December 18, 2025 — A former anaesthetist, Frédéric Péchier, has been sentenced to life imprisonment for intentionally poisoning 30 patients, 12 of whom died.
A court in Besançon, eastern France, found Péchier guilty of contaminating infusion bags with substances that caused cardiac arrest or hemorrhaging.
The victims ranged in age from a four-year-old child who survived two cardiac arrests during a routine tonsil surgery in 2016, to an 89-year-old patient.
Prosecutors described Péchier as a “poisoner and murderer” who had “turned this clinic into a graveyard,” adding that he had brought shame to the medical profession.
Péchier, who had been under investigation for eight years for alleged poisonings at two Besançon clinics between 2008 and 2017, spent the 15 weeks of his trial at liberty under judicial supervision. He will serve a minimum of 22 years in prison.
He has consistently denied wrongdoing, stating, “I have said it before and I'll say it again: I am not a poisoner... I have always upheld the Hippocratic oath.”
Péchier has 10 days to appeal the verdict, which could lead to a second trial within a year.
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