The Berlin public prosecutor's office on Monday said police had arrested a former cardiology specialist at the Charite hospital in connection with the deaths of two patients.

The 55-year-old man, who was dismissed from the hospital in August last year, is suspected of having knowingly administered high doses of a sedative to seriously ill patients.

What we know so far

The doses used in the two cases, from 2021 and 2022, were said to have been so high that the intensive care patients died.

Prosecutors began their investigation after a complaint from the hospital itself. 

The hospital said at the time that it had received an anonymous reference to "an unlawful medical action resulting in death."

In addition to dismissing the specialist involved, the clinic said it had taken "all other necessary measures to protect those potentially affected groups of people."

The arrest took place on the grounds of an urgent suspicion after a medical report. Police said that, previously, it had not been possible to rule out that the high dosage of the sedative would still have been medically justifiable.

An expert assessment said this was not the case in at least two of the four deaths examined – and that this would have been apparent to the accused.

The suspect was arrested on Monday morning. He was set to appear before an investigating judge at the city's Tiergarten District Court, with an ongoing investigation to be conducted by a homicide commission from the Berlin State Criminal Police Office.

rc/jcg (Reuters,dpa)

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