Overview
- The Doubs assize court began reviewing the final two suspected cases, involving Bertrand Collette, 56, and Henri Quenillet, 73, who died after cardiac arrests during surgeries in October and November 2016 at Clinique Saint‑Vincent in Besançon.
- An investigator testified that in both operations the patients were first on the schedule, Frédéric Péchier arrived around 6 a.m., worked in an adjacent operating room, and then joined the resuscitation efforts.
- Police suspect potassium was introduced into anesthesia IV bags on the mornings of the procedures, a scenario the accused contests as he continues to deny wrongdoing.
- The testimony linked the incidents to open conflicts with anesthetists Sylvain Serri and Loubna Assila, in what investigators described as a completely deleterious work climate at the clinic.
- Péchier, 53, is on trial for 30 alleged poisonings including 12 fatal cases between 2008 and 2017, with experts having raised a poisoning hypothesis in the child Tedy’s 2016 arrest as the defense advanced an alternative glottis‑spray theory; he is tried free and a verdict is expected on December 19.