Former nurse in Germany jailed for life

A former nurse was convicted of killing 85 of his patients and sentenced to life imprisonment on Thursday for the worst killing spree in Germany’s post-war history, multiple local media outlets reported.

Niels Hoegel, a 42-year-old former nurse who is considered Germany's deadliest post-war serial killer, was sentenced to life in prison at a court in the northwest city of Oldenburg.

Hoegel, who injected his patients with lethal drugs and then played the hero by appearing to struggle to revive them, had already been convicted and sentenced for two murders in 2015. Prosecutors last year brought further charges over the dozens of other murders of which he was accused.

The health worker had previously confessed to killing 100 patients -- aged between 34 and 96 years old -- at two hospitals in northern Germany between 2000 and 2005.

In past hearings, Hoegel said he felt euphoric when he managed to bring a patient back to life, and devastated when he failed.

The former nurse is already serving a life sentence for six convictions, including homicide and attempted homicide in 2008 and 2015. Those convictions led authorities to investigate hundreds of deaths and exhume the bodies of former patients in the clinics where he worked.

Hoegel asked his victims' families for forgiveness on Wednesday for his "horrible acts."

"I would like to sincerely apologize for everything I did to you over the course of years," he said during the hearing.

One of the biggest questions in the case is how Hoegel was able to murder so many people apparently under the watch of hospital staff.

During sentencing Judge Sebastian Buehrmann criticized what he called staff's "collective amnesia," adding that Hoegel's killing spree was "incomprehensible."

About 126 relatives of the victims are co-plaintiffs in the trial, which has been running since October 2018.