Bonnemaison faces three more charges
Doctor accused of poisoning elderly patients is now charged with causing seven deaths
AN ACCIDENT and emergency doctor suspected of poisoning patients has been charged in connection with three more cases.
Nicolas Bonnemaison now faces seven charges in total of “poisoning particularly vulnerable people”.
The original cases, dating from last spring and summer, related to elderly people considered to be close to death, and admitted to A&E in Bayonne awaiting placement in palliative care facilities.
A&E workers passed on suspicions to their bosses that the doctor may have deliberately ended the patients’ lives.
The doctor is also suspected of possible involvement in two other cases, in one of which he has been named as témoin assisté - a lesser status than a formal charge, but which may lead to one. A judge has yet to rule on the other case, which followed a complaint by the General Inspectorate of Social Affairs.
Bonnemaison, 50, has already admitted to having undertaken lethal injections to cut short patients’ suffering.
The prosecution accuse him of acting alone, but so far none of the families have officially lodged complaints, though the family of one 86-year-old who died last year is partie civile in the case, having declared a wish to understand what took place. This is a lesser “civil suit” by an interested party in a case, not equal to an actual accusation of crime.
Bonnemaison is free on bail, but has been banned from practising medicine or contacting members of his old team. He can once again live in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques, as his bail conditions have been changed. Assisted suicide is illegal in France, and he could face life in prison.
