Verdict expected in the trial of an anesthetist following the death of a girl

The verdict is expected this Wednesday (12 p.m.) in the new trial against an anesthetist following the death of a little girl in a dentist's office.

In September 2021, the doctor injected a total of four children with contaminated anesthetic in the practice in Kronberg in the Hochtaunus district and committed other blatant hygiene errors. The children suffered blood poisoning. The four-year-old girl died that night in the dentist's chair. A boy and another girl had to be artificially ventilated at the Frankfurt University Hospital and barely survived.

In the first instance, the former doctor was sentenced to ten and a half years in prison by another chamber of the Frankfurt regional court for, among other things, manslaughter. This didn't go far enough for the public prosecutor's office: it successfully appealed to the Federal Court of Justice (BGH).

Prosecutor sees cover-up murder

The prosecution is demanding a life sentence. In her plea, she argued that the German anesthesiologist wanted to cover up his serious treatment errors and put the lives of his young patients at risk to do so. This made him guilty of the murder of the four-year-old and the attempted murder of three other children. Accordingly, he acted with the intention of concealment, a characteristic of murder.

The defendant's defense contradicts this representation. If he had intended to cover up his actions, it would have been in his interest to prevent the girl's death and thus the intensive investigation. Another argument against an intention to conceal the crime is that the defendant “did not remove any traces,” said the lawyer. Instead, the defense justified his behavior as being overtired and overworked.