A court in The Hague has sentenced Dutch nurse Lucy de Berk, accused of killing older people and infants with a lethal mix of drugs, to life imprisonment for four murders and three attempted murders.
De Berk (41), was originally charged with 13 counts of murder and five attempted murders in three hospitals in The Hague where she worked between February 1997 and September 2001.
The prosecutors had demanded life imprisonment for de Berk, painting her as a woman obsessed with death and exhibiting classic psychopathic behaviour. Her defence had asked for her acquittal, arguing that all the evidence was circumstantial. Her lawyer said she would appeal.
The case has touched a raw nerve in the Netherlands - the first country in the world to legalise euthanasia - sparking fears that medical staff could get away with murder.
"Given the facts and circumstances, the court has concluded after substantial consideration that only life imprisonment is appropriate," Judge Jeanne Kalk said.
De Berk showed little emotion during the ruling, and was calm when the sentence was announced.
Judge Kalk described how de Berk had been on duty when young patients such as Ahmad Noory, a six-year-old physically and mentally handicapped boy, died of a lethal drug overdose.
"The court concludes that the accused . . . administered substances and/or conducted treatments that caused the victim to stop breathing suddenly and to die," she ruled, adding that de Berk's action had been deliberate and premeditated.
"The accused had told a social worker she had trouble nursing this young patient because he was so sick and screamed so much," said the judge.
The suspected murders came to light in September 2001, when a co-worker of de Berk raised the alarm after an infant in her care died. Prosecutors had used excerpts from de Berk's diary from her time as a nurse to seek to prove her guilt. "I gave in to my compulsions . . . I don't even know why I am doing it . . . I will take this secret with me into the grave . . . Still I hope I am helping people by this!" she was quoted as saying in diary extracts read out in court.