• New twist in the Péchier affair, named after this anesthesiologist indicted for 24 poisonings of patients and suspected of 8 others.

  • He had obtained Wednesday to be able to work again as a simple doctor but the public prosecutor of Besançon announced Thursday that he was going to challenge this decision.

  • It is "not for a single moment conceivable" that Frédéric Péchier, certainly "presumed innocent" but indicted, "is authorized to practice the profession of doctor", declared Etienne Manteaux.

Péchier case, last twist.

The anesthesiologist indicted for 24 poisonings of patients and suspected of 8 others had obtained on Wednesday to work again as a simple doctor.

A decision of the investigating chamber of the Besançon Court of Appeal.

The day after this, the public prosecutor of Besançon announced Thursday that he was going to challenge it.

“I am going to seize the investigating magistrate with an increase in the judicial control”, announced Etienne Manteaux, considering that it was in his eyes “not a single moment conceivable” that Frédéric Péchier, certainly “presumed innocent” but put in examination, "be authorized to practice the profession of doctor".

It was the Council of the Order of Physicians who had to say in fine whether or not the anesthetist can practice again, specified the investigating chamber, which had also lightened its judicial control, authorizing in particular Dr Péchier to return to the Doubs, where her children live.

On the other hand, he must keep his main residence in Vienne, where he lives with his parents.

"Non-standard" case

According to Etienne Manteaux, the judgment delivered on Wednesday constitutes a "strict reading" and a clarification of the "terms used by the judge of freedoms and detention" (JLD) who had left Frédéric Péchier free under judicial control by prohibiting him "from practice the profession of anesthesiologist.

A wording which had since been understood by "everyone" as "a general ban on practicing the profession of doctor", in particular by the suspect and his advisers who had therefore seized the investigating chamber to be able to exercise the profession again. medicine.

According to Etienne Manteaux, one of the messages of the investigating chamber is also to ask "legal actors" that "this judicial investigation is over": the investigation, started in 2017, "is becoming very long ".

This is a case "out of the ordinary in all respects" and "very complex but it must [that it] be completed and I can assure you that we are all well aware of it", he insisted , citing the objective of closing the judicial investigation “in the summer of 2023”.

A date which “will obviously depend a lot on the defense” of the doctor, according to the requests for expertise or counter-expertise that they could request, nuanced the prosecutor.

Suspected of having polluted infusion bags

All of the expert reports should indeed be returned at the beginning of February and Frédéric Péchier is summoned by the examining magistrate in March for "nine successive interrogations", in particular around eight new cases of poisoning for which he is suspected, added Etienne Manteaux.

Our dossier on the Péchier affair

Frédéric Péchier, 50, 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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Péchier case: Besançon anesthesiologist suspected of eight new cases of poisoning

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Poitiers: Suicide attempt by the anesthetist from Besançon suspected of 24 poisonings

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