North Rhine-Westphalia: Convicted pharmacist from Bottrop wants license to return

The pharmacist, who was sentenced to 12 years in prison and a lifelong ban from practicing medicine for adulterating cancer drugs, wants his license back.

North Rhine-Westphalia: Convicted pharmacist from Bottrop wants license to return

The pharmacist, who was sentenced to 12 years in prison and a lifelong ban from practicing medicine for adulterating cancer drugs, wants his license back. That's why he complained to an administrative court.

Gelsenkirchen (dpa / lnw) - The pharmacist from Bottrop, who was sentenced to twelve years in prison for adulterated cancer drugs, wants his license back. The Gelsenkirchen administrative court has to decide on this this Thursday (10:30 a.m.). In 2018, after around eight months of negotiations, the Essen Regional Court sentenced the pharmacist to twelve years in prison and a lifelong professional ban for years of supplying cancer patients with underdosed medicines for fraud and violations of the Medicines Act in a large number of cases. The district government of Münster later revoked the criminal's license as a pharmacist forever.

The convicted person is now taking action against this and is suing the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, represented by the Münster district government, "against the revocation of his license to practice medicine". After he had already failed in the summary proceedings, the main proceedings will take place on Thursday, the presiding judge at the administrative court, Wolfgang Thewes, confirmed on Wednesday to the German Press Agency. The "WAZ" also reported.

It is unclear whether the plaintiff will be present at the hearing. It wasn't loaded, Thewes said. Actually, the pharmacist still has to serve his sentence - he was in custody after his arrest from 2016 until the start of the trial in November 2017. Recently, however, there are increasing indications that he could be in the open prison of the prison (JVA) in Bielefeld-Senne. Some witnesses also claimed that they last saw him on the streets in Bottrop.

Two years after the Essen judgment, the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) in Karlsruhe rejected the appeal by the pharmacist. The judgment became final and the district government finally revoked his license as a pharmacist.

Parallel to the lawsuit before the administrative court, insolvency proceedings have been ongoing against him at the Essen district court since March 2019. According to "WAZ", the Düsseldorf insolvency administrator Dirk Andres is continuing to secure assets in the double-digit millions. The BGH later reduced the amount of damage initially estimated by the regional court at 17 million euros to 13.6 million euros via the appeal. The pharmacist's villa has recently been sold. The luxury hotel with numerous extras, which used to cost around eleven million euros, was offered for sale by a broker for 5.7 million euros. Whether she achieved this price is not known.