The Zurich District Court on Monday sentenced a paediatric heart surgeon to a fine for multiple threats. The 45-year-old had threatened staff members of the children’s hospital with death.
For the court, it was established that at a mediation session in 2019, sentences were uttered that “made everyone present feel uncomfortable afterwards”, as the judge put it. These statements had affected all the aggrieved parties’ sense of security.
The heart surgeon therefore received a fine of 80 daily fines of 30 francs for multiple threats, conditional on a probationary period of two years. The sentence is not yet legally binding. The doctor can still appeal to the higher court.
Those present, including members of the management of the children’s hospital, all said that they had been threatened with death by the previously dismissed doctor. Among other things, he had announced that he would get justice, but that he would “not get his hands dirty”.
Where he comes from, Egypt, such things are done differently, but he has connections, the doctor said, according to the other participants in the meeting. In another case, he had attacked someone with his car, “and then boom, two metres in the air”. After the meeting, the children’s hospital filed a complaint with the police and hired armed security.
The threats also had an impact on the private lives of the meeting participants. They all felt threatened and hired their own security guards to accompany them from then on. One bought a pepper spray, another prepared his army pistol. They cancelled events, left the shutters down and forbade their children to play outside.
The conflict was triggered by the children’s hospital dismissing the doctor, citing “inappropriate social behaviour” and “insufficient performance” as reasons for termination. The surgeon appealed and even went on hunger strike in April 2019 to protest his dismissal. Various media reported on the escalated dispute.
His lawyer argued on Monday that his client had not threatened violence at all, but that there would be a legal dispute. If the participants in the meeting felt threatened, that was “their own perception”, according to the lawyer.
It was not his client’s statements that were problematic, but the prejudices of the participants. They had a preconceived opinion because of his Egyptian origin. In addition, they had not understood him well because of his lack of knowledge of German.
In the minutes of an earlier crisis meeting, the hospital had accused him of having “delusions regarding his honour”. His client was portrayed as a “high-grade psychopath”. Keywords such as “Egyptian, Muslim, status symbols, loss of face” were also mentioned in these minutes. For an institution like the hospital, this is not only unprofessional, “it has a racist undertone”.
The dispute is now not over even with this ruling. In June, the parties will meet again in court, among other things because of the employer’s reference. The heart surgeon is demanding more benevolent wording.