Italian surgeon found guilty in Sweden over patients’ deaths

A Swedish appeals court on Wednesday found Italian surgeon Paolo Macchiarini guilty of gross assault for implanting artificial tracheas in three patients who subsequently died, sentencing him to two-and-a-half years in prison.

The former surgeon at Karolinska University Hospital, which is linked to the institute that awards the Nobel Prize for Medicine, was charged with performing the experimental procedure on three people in 2011 and 2012. All three later died.

In 2022 a district court found him not guilty of aggravated assault in all three cases, but guilty of causing grievous bodily harm in one case, handing down a suspended sentence.

However, the Svea court of appeals said on Wednesday it had found him guilty in all three cases.

“The court of appeal sentences the surgeon to prison for two years and six months for three cases of gross assault,” it said.