A Swiss male nurse has been sentenced to life in prison for murdering 22 of his patients in nursing homes.

Roger Andermatt, 36, was found guilty of killing them by lethal injection or suffocation, and of attempting to murder five other elderly patients.

Dubbed the Angel of Death by the local media, Andermatt said he had acted from compassion for his frail victims.

The Lucerne court also ordered him to pay SFr75,000 ($63,000) compensation to four victims' families.

The sentence, which also included SFr191,000 ($161,000) court costs, was higher than prosecutors had asked for.

A criminal investigation concluded last year that Andermatt had killed the patients at several nursing homes in central Switzerland between 1995 and 2001.

Most of his victims were aged between 66 and 95, many suffered from Alzheimer's disease and needed high levels of care.

Euthanasia rules

The investigation found that he had killed his patients by using tranquilisers or smothering them with a plastic bag or cloth.

Andermatt was arrested in June 2001 following a suspicious death in a nursing home in Lucerne. He confessed to nine deaths in that home alone.

He admitted responsibility for 27 killings in total, although he was only sentenced over the deaths of 22.

At least three of the deaths were formally classified as assisted suicides as the authorities said they could not establish whether his actions were the cause of death in those cases.

Lucerne officials issued a statement at the time of the investigation, saying: "The accused gave as his motive acting out of sympathy, compassion, empathy and salvation on the one hand and also cited total overload and relief for himself and the (nursing) team on the other hand."

Euthanasia is tolerated in a number of Swiss cantons, provided strict rules are followed.

A criminal investigation in Switzerland has concluded that a male nurse did kill 24 elderly care home patients.

The man, dubbed the Angel of Death by Swiss media, has admitted carrying out the killings out of sympathy or pity.

Officials say he killed his alleged victims, aged between 66 and 95, with overdoses of drugs or by smothering them with plastic bags and towels.

The nurse, 34, who has not been formally named, will go on trial at the end of the year or early in 2005.

He was arrested in June 2001 following a suspicious death in a nursing home in Lucerne. He confessed to nine deaths in that home alone before admitting responsibility for a further 18 killings.

Three of the deaths have been formally classified as assisted suicides as the authorities said they could not establish whether his actions were the cause of death in those cases.

The victims, from five care homes in the region, were all elderly with Alzheimer's disease or in need of high levels of care.

'Total overload'

A statement by officials in Lucerne, where the deaths occurred between 1995 and 2001, said: "The accused gave as his motive acting out of sympathy, compassion, empathy and salvation on the one hand and also cited total overload and relief for himself and the (nursing) team on the other hand."

At the time of his arrest Swiss media identified the nurse as Roger Andermatt, a Swiss citizen who moved to Germany after his parents' divorce, but returned to Switzerland in 1990 and trained as a nurse assistant.

Euthanasia is tolerated in a number of Swiss cantons, provided strict rules are followed.

The report into the Swiss deaths come shortly after Britain's most prolific serial killer, former family doctor Harold Shipman, hanged himself in his prison cell.