BERLIN, April 16, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - Berlin prosecutors said Wednesday they had charged a local palliative care doctor with the murder of 15 patients, saying that in some cases he had set fire to victims' apartments to cover his tracks.

The 40-year-old suspect is accused of having killed 12 women and three men between September 2021 and July 2024 using a deadly cocktail of drugs.

The doctor allegedly "administered an anaesthetic and a muscle relaxant to his patients... without their knowledge or consent", the Berlin prosecutor's office said in a statement.

The muscle relaxant is said to have "paralysed the respiratory muscles, leading to respiratory arrest and death within minutes".

The victims, who were all receiving care at the time, were aged between 25 and 94 years old.

On five occasions, prosecutors alleged that the suspect had "set fire to their apartments to cover up these killings".

On one occasion, the suspect is accused of having killed two patients on the same day. On the morning of July 8, 2024, he is alleged to have killed a 75-year-old man at his home in the central Berlin district of Kreuzberg.

"A few hours later" he is said to have struck again, killing a 76-year-old woman in the neighbouring Neukoelln district.

The suspect's alleged attempt to incinerate the crime scene "failed" when the fire did not catch, prosecutors said.

"When he noticed this, he reportedly informed a relative of the woman, claiming that he was standing in front of her apartment and that no one had responded to his ringing," they said.

Prosecutors wanted a "lifelong professional ban" and "preventative detention" to forestall any new murder attempts in the meantime, they said.

The suspect has been held in custody since his arrest in August last year.

The number of alleged killings has grown since his initial arrest. He had initially been accused of only four alleged murders.