A person in a wheelchair smoking a cigarette in front of the Oberlin care centre in Potsdam, eastern Germany, on April 29.ODD ANDERSEN/AFP/Getty Images
A former nurse at a home for people with severe disabilities in eastern Germany was convicted of murder and given a 15-year sentence on Wednesday for killing four residents.
The state court in Potsdam ordered the 52-year-old woman sent to a psychiatric hospital, German news agency dpa reported. She also was convicted of attempted murder and ill-treatment of people in her care.
Judges found that the defendant fatally wounded the four residents, three of whom were completely and one partly paralyzed, with a knife in their rooms on April 28. Another resident survived after an emergency operation.
A psychiatric report found that the woman committed the attack in a state of reduced criminal responsibility, and the defense had called for the court to find that she wasn’t criminally responsible.
The defendant apologized to the victims’ relatives in a closing statement to the trial.
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