'Dr Death' found guilty of manslaughter in Aus

Indian-origin surgeon Jayant Patel, dubbed as 'Dr Death', was on Tuesday convicted of manslaughter of three Australian patients and grievously harming another after a 14-week trial held in a Melbourne court.

Patel, 60, now an American citizen, was remanded to police custody till Thursday, after a 12-man jury found him guilty of all charges after 50 hours of deliberations.

Patel did not speak at the trial where he was held guilty and faces a maximum penalty of life in prison.

The American Indian was found guilty on three counts of manslaughter committed during his tenure as director of surgery at the Bundaberg Base Hospital in Queensland between 2003 and 2005.

The doctor was extradited from United States to face the Supreme Court in Brisbane for conducting dangerous, unnecessary and inappropriate operations on some of his patients.

Though Patel pleaded not guilty, he was convicted by the jury for the manslaughter of James Phillips, 46, Gerry Kemps, 77, and Mervyn Morris, 75, who died following the surgeries performed by him.

He was also found guilty of causing grievous bodily harm to Ian Vowles, whose healthy bowel he removed in October 2004.

Patel, who had been dubbed 'Dr Death' by the Australian media, faced a 14-week-long trial involving cross examination of 76 witnesses about his surgeries on two patients Kemps and Phillips, a major colon operation on Morris and an operation to remove the healthy bowel of Vowles.

The trial came almost quarter of a century after questions were raised about his competency in carrying out surgeries. The jury heard that Patel had been banned by US health authorities for carrying out some medical procedures.

The prosecution alleged that the operations on the three deceased men should not have been done at Bundaberg Hospital as the facility did not have the resources to deal with such major surgeries.

Meanwhile, Patel's defence team had insisted that Patel was not guilty, saying that he always acted in the best interests of his patients.

Defence barrister Michael Byrne told the jury much of the evidence presented by the prosecution during the long trial had been fuelled by "a great deal of second-guessing and use of hindsight".

"With hindsight it may have been the wrong call (to operate on Kemps) but that does not make the decision criminally negligent," Byrne said.

Byrne warned the jury against using the benefit of hindsight in making their judgment about whether or not Patel was criminally negligent in proceeding with the operations, ABC news channel reported on Tuesday.