In June 2022, the Solna district court sentenced Paolo Macchiarini to a suspended sentence for causing bodily harm, but he was acquitted of crimes against two of three patients who had his synthetic trachea operated on at Karolinska University Hospital.
Despite the fact that the interventions, according to the district court, did not comply with the requirement of science and proven experience, Paolo Macchiarini was considered to have acted in a needy, criminal sense, due to the patients’ condition. The first two transplants were therefore justified.
Considering the severe complications that followed, however, the surgeon should never have performed the third operation, according to the district court.
The question is whether the Svea court of appeal makes the same interpretation of the so-called emergency clause. For the lawyers, it is important to decide what is to be counted as an emergency, and how the benefit should be weighed against the risk.
Both sides appealed the district court verdict. According to the prosecutors, none of the three patients was so close to dying that the unproven procedures were necessary. They claim that the interventions were completely contrary to science and that Paolo Macchiarini should therefore be sentenced to prison for aggravated assault, alternatively aggravated assault causing bodily harm in all three cases.
