An anesthetist from Besançon indicted for 24 poisonings of patients was notified of a ban on practicing any medical activity, a few weeks following a previous court decision which authorized him to practice as a simple doctor, we learned Monday with his lawyer.
KEYSTONE
The defense received from the judge responsible for investigating the case “an order prohibiting Dr Péchier from exercising any medical activity”, one of his advisers, Randall Schwerdorffer, told AFP, confirming information from France Blue Besancon.
“We are going to appeal this decision to the investigating chamber” of the Besançon Court of Appeal, announced Mr. Schwerdorffer, denouncing judicial harassment to prevent his client from finding a semblance of existence.
This ban comes following the decision on January 11 of the investigating chamber which had considered on the contrary that he might exercise a medical activity, with the exception of that of anesthetist-resuscitator.
Seized by the defence, the court had then brought its reading of a decision of the judge of freedoms and detention (JLD) initially prohibiting the anesthetist “from exercising the profession of doctor-anaesthetist”. An initial decision long interpreted as a global ban on the practice of medicine – wrongly according to the investigating chamber.
The latter had also lightened the judicial control of the anesthesiologist, authorizing him in particular to return to the Doubs where his children reside, but obliging him to keep his main residence in Vienne, where he lives with his parents. These points were not modified by the order of the investigating judge served on Monday, according to Mr. Schwerdorffer.
Polluted infusion bags
The decision of the investigating chamber had aroused the ire of the public prosecutor of Besançon, Etienne Manteaux, who announced the next day during a press conference his intention to seize the investigating judge, considering “not a single conceivable moment” that the anesthetist, certainly “presumed innocent” but under investigation, “is authorized to practice” medicine.
Asked by AFP, Mr. Manteaux had not reacted at the start of the evening.
The anesthesiologist, 51, is suspected of having polluted the infusion bags of patients to cause cardiac arrest and then demonstrate his skills as a resuscitator, but also discredit colleagues with whom he was in conflict.
He is indicted for 24 cases of poisoning, including nine fatalities. Since September, he has also been suspected of eight new cases of potential poisoning of patients, including four fatalities.
The practitioner has claimed his innocence since the start of the case.
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