BERLIN: German public prosecutors on Monday said they had brought new charges against a killer nurse already serving a life sentence for murdering two patients, accusing him of killing another 97 people with lethal injections. Should Hoegel be convicted of all new charges leveled against him, it would mark him as of the worst serial killers in Germany post-World War II, BBC News reported. The third trial of Niels Hoegel, 41, accused of being the worst serial killer in German post-war history, is expected to start later this year, a court spokesman in the northern city of Oldenburg told AFP. Hoegel has admitted to injecting patients with drugs that cause heart failure or circulatory collapse so he could then try to revive them and, when successful, shine as a saviour before his medical peers and superiors. In a case police have called “unique in the history of the German republic,” he earlier testified that at times he acted out of “boredom”, feeling euphoric when he managed to bring a patient back to life. On Monday, Oldenburg prosecutors said they had charged him with 97 additional murders on top of the six he has been convicted of, while saying toxicology tests did not find conclusive proof in three more cases. During the trial it was heard he confessed to the killings of 90 more people during his employment in Oldenburg and Delmenhorst hospitals, prompting investigators to carry out toxicological examinations on dozens of other patients who died at the hospitals. The new charges come in addition to two counts of murder for which an Oldenburg court sentenced him to life in prison in 2015.
German nurse and convicted serial killer Niels Högel is charged with 97 further counts of murder.