At least five years in prison were required on Monday May 23 against the Italian surgeon Paolo Macchiarini, a time hailed for his advances in trachea surgery, but now tried in Sweden for "
aggravated abuse
".
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The researcher rose to world fame in 2011 by performing the world's first transplant of an artificial plastic trachea to be colonized by the patient's stem cells.
At the end of the last day of his trial in Solna on the outskirts of Stockholm on Monday, prosecutors considered that the charges warranted a sentence of "
clearly more than five years in prison
", prosecutor Jim Westerberg told AFP. .
Judgment is due June 16.
The Italian surgeon, who appears free, had operated on eight people between 2011 and 2014, including three at the Karolinska Institute hospital in Stockholm, from which the committee that awards the Nobel Prize for Medicine came.
Of Paolo Macchiarini's patients, only one survived, having had the artificial trachea designed and implanted by the doctor removed during an operation in Russia in 2014. The three patients treated in Sweden died, although the direct link between their death and the surgeries has not been established.
Prosecutors argued that Paolo Macchiarine's surgeries went against “
proven science and experience
” and that the surgeon acted “
recklessly
» by continuing treatment despite the appearance of complications.
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The prosecution should however accept a reduced sentence, given the seniority of the operations, according to Jim Westerberg.
During his trial, Macchiarini pleaded that the experimental treatments were the result of “
teamwork
”, discussed in depth and decided upstream with the hierarchy, while telling the court that he wanted to save lives. .
In 2013, Karolinska Hospital suspended all transplants after the broadcast of a documentary incriminating the questionable practices of Paolo Macchiarini, whose contract had not been extended.
Found guilty of scientific misconduct by an external committee, he was dismissed from the institute in 2016.
