Paolo Macchiarini is sentenced to prison.
The scandal surgeon himself is shocked – and believes that in that case more people should be sentenced after the criticized operations.
TV4 Nyheterna’s Lennart Hultman–Boye explains what lies behind today’s Court of Appeal ruling.
On Wednesday afternoon, the surgeon held a press conference, together with lawyer Björn Hurtig, where he expressed his surprise and disappointment at the Svea Court of Appeal’s verdict.
TV4 Nyheternas reporter Lennart Hultman-Boye, who has been following the case for several years and who previously interviewed Macchiarini, was there.
What does Paolo Macchiarini think about the Court of Appeal verdict?
– He believes that the court is wrong, of course, and he has a very hard time with this word; intent. The court believes that he has had it and in the legal sense. If you ignore risks that should be or are known to you, then you can be considered to have a legal intent, sometimes called an intent of indifference. For Paolo Macchiarini, the English word “intent” is something I think he perceives more as a direct intent, that he intended to harm when he performed operations.
How does he defend himself?
– He thinks that what he did was right then and there. That is what he claims and what he has claimed all along. He believes that he only worked at the Karolinska hospital, or for the Karolinska Institute, and that those responsible there also bear responsibility. And he is right about that, and that responsibility has also been established in the investigation. But what has been discussed now and what today’s sentence is about is the crime of aggravated assault, where it is only Paolo Macchiarini who is primarily responsible for the operations,
– In the questions themselves, there is a point that people who had some kind of review should have asked questions, who should have pulled the emergency brake, who should have ensured that there was approval from the Norwegian Medicines Agency, or ethical permits. The soup Paolo Macchirarini and the handling from Karolinska it is what it is.
He mentioned at the press conference that relatives thanked him – how much truth is there in that?
– That is a strange statement. The patients did not die immediately on the operating table, for quite a long time people lived in the belief that the operations worked and it was only later that the consequences became clear. When the graft failed, when there were serious infections, when the graft dislodged, when patients leaked air, when there was a hole between their trachea and esophagus, when they bled profusely, when they vomited blood, when they died in their own blood from body arteries that cracked. When Paolo Macchiarini says that the patients and their relatives thanked him, then it is about right after the operations, just before the consequences and extent of what happened became known.
What happens now?
– He in no way wants to see this as an end point. He and his lawyer are clear that this judgment will be appealed and they would like to believe that the Supreme Court would be interested, which is not at all certain. This may well be the end point for the legal part of the Paolo Macchiarini case. And when it comes to investigations from other aspects by authorities and external investigators, the case is also closed, where the wrongs Macchiarini has committed have been established.
Why do you think the case engages so many people?
– On the one hand, it is something unique that happened medically. Here it was said that you could operate on organs made of plastic and then avoid having organ donors. You would smear the organs with stem cells and over time they would turn into real, functioning organs with real cells. It is spectacular in itself.
– Then there is something about the person Paolo Macchirarini who built a reputation for himself as a star surgeon who was a nice, charming, persuasive man, who was later found to have manipulated and lied. There were many factors that made the Macchirarini case capture the world’s attention.