A German nurse has been jailed for life after being convicted of murdering 85 patients.
Niels Hoegel had been charged with 100 counts of murder over allegations he killed patients at two hospitals in northwestern Germany between 1999 and 2005.
The conviction makes him Germany’s most prolific serial killer in the country’s post-war history.
The court in Oldenburg heard he had killed his victims by putting them into cardiac arrest because he enjoyed the feeling of being able to resuscitate them.
Prosecutors asked the court to recognise the “particular seriousness of the crimes” to ensure the 42-year-old served more than the standard 15 years in jail.
Hoegel worked at a hospital in Oldenburg between 1999 and 2002 and another hospital in nearby Delmenhorst from 2003 to 2005.
He is accused of killing patients aged between 34 and 96 beginning in 2000 and only stopping in 2005 when he was caught injecting a patient with ajmaline.
But he has also previously told investigators he had killed patients in Oldenburg too.
As a result, authorities have investigated hundreds of deaths, exhuming the bodies of former patients.
During the seven-month trial, Hoegel admitted to 43 of the killings, disputed five, and said he could not remember the other 52.
He expressed regret in a closing statement on Wednesday, saying he realised how much pain and suffering he had caused with his “terrible deeds”.
“To each and every one of you I sincerely apologise for all that I have done over the course of years,” he said.
Hoegel has already spent a decade in prison for other murders, and was convicted in 2015 of two murders and two attempted murders.
There are no consecutive sentences in the German system, but the court's ruling on the seriousness of his crimes means he is highly likely to remain incarcerated after the standard 15-year term is up.
Additional reporting by agencies
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