A French appeals court on Saturday partially overturned the acquittal of a French emergency room doctor for the poison deaths of seven terminally ill patients, handing him a suspended two-year sentence, reports Yahoo! News.
A lower court had acquitted Nicolas Bonnemaison last year in an emotionally-charged trial that gripped a country where euthanasia is illegal.
The appeals court in the western city of Angers found Bonnemaison, 54, guilty of deliberately killing one of the seven, an 86-year-old woman.
Bonnemaison, his head lowered, did not react as the verdict was read out on Saturday.
The public prosecutor had sought a five-year suspended sentence. Bonnemaison had faced a maximum of life imprisonment.
The acquittal came just a day after France's highest administrative court authorised ending the life of a quadriplegic in a vegetative state, a landmark decision that divided his family and was immediately blocked by the European Court of Human Rights pending a review of the case.