BERLIN, June 29 (UPI) -- A German nurse who said she gave lethal doses of medication to six patients to spare them pain was sentenced Friday to life in prison.
Irene Becker apologized to the families of her victims and asked them to forgive her, Deutsche Welle reported. She was arrested in October 2006 after another employee at the Charite Hospital in Berlin became suspicious of the high death rate in her ward.
"I am sorry to have intervened in the destiny of people," she said. "With hindsight I realize that what I did was wrong."
In one case, Becker gave an elderly woman an overdose that killed her while the woman's husband was at her bedside.
At her trial, Becker admitted four of the killings but said she had been doing what her patients wanted.
Becker worked in the cardiology ward at Charite, the largest university hospital in Europe.
