Surgeon Paolo Macchiariani was sentenced with parole for personal injury to one of the three patients on whom he had undergone the biotech synthetic trachea transplant a decade ago.
The Swedish prosecutor accused him of aggravated assault on three people, all of whom died, for operating on them inappropriately and with ruthlessness between 2011 and 2014.
Throughout the trial, which took place in recent weeks, Macchiarini denied any criminal offense. The prosecutor had asked for Paolo Macchiarini to be sentenced to at least five years in prison for, firstly, aggravated assault and, secondly, for personal injury in the three cases. Serious aggression requires intention, while wrongful crime requires negligence. The Court considers instead that he should only be sentenced for the interventions on the third patient.
At the end of 2010, Macchiarini had been recruited as a visiting professor at the Karolinska Institute and Karolinska University Hospital. In 2011 he made headlines around the world for performing the first stem cell trachea transplant at the main Swedish hospital. Subsequently, the surgeon of Tuscan origins returned to the front pages of those same newspapers for a series of scandals that brought him into disgrace and that blew many heads of the Karolinska Institute.
It turned out that Macchiarini had cheated on his professional resume, had falsified data and had operated by breaking ethical limits. According to the Solna district court, where the Karolinska Institute and Karolinska University Hospital are located, the crime is serious, because the surgeries did not take place according to science and proven experimentation, but does not require imprisonment; instead, Macchiarini will undergo a trial period for two years without supervision. If he commits other crimes, a penalty will be imposed or the probationary period will be extended.