Former nurse admits killing 100 patients

AFORMER nurse accused of killing 100 patients at two hospitals in Germany more than a decade ago has told a court as his trial opened that the charges against him are largely accurate.

Niels Hoegel, 41, is already serving a life sentence for murder.

His trial in the north-western city of Oldenburg began with a minute’s silence for the patients.

Asked by presiding judge Sebastian Buehrmann whether the charges against him are largely true, Hoegel replied yes, news agency dpa reported. There are no formal pleas in the German legal system.

The murder charges stem from Hoegel’s time at a hospital in Oldenburg between 1999 and 2002, and at another hospital in nearby Delmenhorst from 2003 until 2005. The alleged victims were aged between 34 and 96.

Hoegel was convicted in 2015 of two murders and two attempted murders. He said then that he intentionally brought about cardiac crises in some 90 patients in Delmenhorst because he enjoyed the feeling of being able to resuscitate them.

He later told investigators that he also killed patients in Oldenburg.

Authorities subsequently investigated hundreds of deaths, exhuming bodies of former patients.

The Oldenburg state court is conducting the trial at a courtroom set up in a conference centre, a venue chosen to accommodate a large number of coplaintiffs and public interest in the proceedings.

Judge Buehrmann promised Hoegel a fair trial.

Hoegel told the court that he had a “protected” childhood, free of violence. He said his grandmother and his father, who were both nurses, had been his role models for the profession.

An additional conviction could affect Hoegel’s possibility of parole, but there are no consecutive sentences in Germany. In general, people serving life sentences are considered for parole after 15 years. The trial is scheduled to last until May.