Overview

• The cour d’assises du Doubs, presided over by Delphine Thibierge, will hear the case from September 8 to December 19, with Frédéric Péchier appearing free under judicial supervision and facing potential life imprisonment.
• Prosecutors accuse the anesthetist of deliberately poisoning 30 patients aged 4 to 89 in two Besançon private clinics between 2008 and 2017, with 12 deaths recorded.
• The inquiry began after a 36-year-old woman suffered a cardiac arrest during surgery in January 2017, when a potentially lethal dose of potassium was found in an infusion bag; investigators reviewed more than 70 serious incidents and retained 30 cases.
• The prosecution alleges infusion bags were polluted to trigger intraoperative cardiac arrests and describes Péchier as the common link across the cases, with the trial prosecution handled by Christine de Curraize and Thérèse Brunisso.
• The defense rejects the poisoning narrative as misattributed medical errors and will seek acquittal, with Péchier telling BFMTV he is not anxious and ready to fight, and more than 150 civil parties set to be represented.