A Danish nurse working at a private nursing home yesterday denied a charge of killing 22 elderly residents in her care with overdoses of painkillers.
Standing with eyes downcast at an arraignment hearing in the city's police headquarters, she tearfully pleaded not guilty to the charge of killing.
Danish law makes no distinction between murder and manslaughter and official police statements used a term which translates as "active euthanasia", implying that they considered the deaths could be the result of mercy killings. The case involves the biggest mass killing in modern Danish history.
A police statement said that the 32-year-old woman was arrested on Monday and charged with killing 15 women and seven men aged between 65 and 75 while she worked at a private centre in Copenhagen from June, 1994, until she was dismissed in March, 1997.
She was also accused of theft of 629,000 crowns (£63,200) from patients, and unlawfully dispensing prescription drugs, a morphine substitute known locally as Ketogan. A doctor at the home was charged with accidental killing and gross negligence.
The nurse was released later yesterday without bail. Police said that although they had grounds for suspicion these were insufficient to keep her in custody.