Prosecutors in Berlin have charged a doctor suspected of administering lethal amounts of various medications to palliative patients under his care with 15 counts of murder.
Prosecutors are also seeking a lifelong professional ban for the 40-year-old suspect, detained since August 2024, who had been active in several German states.
The suspect, not officially named in line with German privacy laws, has not admitted to the charges, said prosecutors.
He was initially suspected of being involved in four deaths last year, which prosecutors said he had tried to cover up by setting fire to the victims' apartments.
However, ongoing investigations have turned up more suspected deaths, dating back to 2021, and that number could rise even further.
An investigative team set up specifically for the case is evaluating his patient records and more exhumations are planned.
The doctor is accused of administering an anaesthetic and then a muscle relaxant to palliative patients under his care who were not actively dying and without their knowledge or consent, said prosecutors.
The muscle relaxant is said to have "paralysed the respiratory muscles, leading to respiratory arrest and death within minutes".
The victims, who were all receiving care at the time, were aged between 25 and 94 years old.
On one occasion, the suspect is accused of having killed two patients on the same day.
On the morning of 8 July 2024, he is alleged to have killed a 75-year-old man at his home in the central Berlin district of Kreuzberg.
"A few hours later" he is said to have struck again, killing a 76-year-old woman in the neighbouring Neukoelln district.
The suspect's alleged attempt to incinerate the crime scene "failed" when the fire did not catch, prosecutors said.
"When he noticed this, he reportedly informed a relative of the woman, claiming that he was standing in front of her apartment and that no one had responded to his ringing," they said.
On another occasion, the suspect is accussed of alerting the emergency services himself "out of fear of being discovered".
The suspect "falsely claimed to have already begun resuscitation efforts" on the 56-year-old victim, who was initially kept alive by rescuers but died three days later in hospital.
A special team of investigators had identified a total of 395 suspicious cases that needed to re-examined in light of the accusations against the doctor.
In 95 cases, an initial suspicion had been confirmed and preliminary proceedings had been initiated.
Another 75 were still being assessed.
In the course of the investigation 12 exhumations had already been carried out, five of which related to the victims listed in the charges.
Another five exhumations were planned to go ahead shortly.
The allegations made against the doctor recall another case currently being tried in Germany, in which a nurse is accused of murdering nine patients in palliative care.
The nurse, whose trial opened in March, is alleged to have injected a total of 26 patients with large doses of sedatives or painkillers, resulting in the deaths of nine.
Prosecutors on the case, being heard in the western city of Aachen, said the suspect was motivated by a desire to reduce his workload on night shifts and had considered himself the "master of life and death".
