Argentine ‘Lucy Letby' jailed for murder of five babies
A nurse has been sentenced to life in prison for killing five babies and attempting to murder eight others at a hospital in Argentina.
Brenda Cecilia Aguero injected potassium and insulin into newborns between March and June 2022, taking doses from emergency medical carts without inventory control, prosecutors said.
The court clerk in Córdoba read out the sentencing in footage broadcast on local media on Wednesday.
Under Argentine law, Aguero will serve at least 35 years in prison, at which point she will be eligible for parole, local media reported.
The case in Argentina bears similarities to that of Lucy Letby in the UK.
The British nurse is serving 15 whole-life orders after she was convicted of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder seven others, with two attempts on one of her victims, between June 2015 and June 2016.
She was accused of injecting air and insulin into the babies, and overfeeding milk.
But Letby has always maintained her innocence.
The babies, all born healthy, died under initially unexplained circumstances at the neonatal ward of the maternal and child hospital in Cordoba province, 370 miles north-west of Buenos Aires. Eight others survived owing to swift medical intervention.
Aguero's mother, Cristina Nobile, told reporters after the sentencing hearing that she would fight to have her daughter's conviction overturned. 'My daughter is innocent, and I will continue fighting,' she said.
The trial also brought charges against 10 other defendants including former provincial officials and health professionals for cover-up and dereliction of duty.
Those charged included a former health minister and secretary of health of Cordoba province, as well as the former hospital director.
Aguero, who was arrested in 2022, denied the charges, earlier telling the court 'they have no evidence' and accusing the media of portraying her as a 'serial killer.'
Of the other defendants, five were found guilty but received lesser sentences while five others were acquitted, including the former provincial officials, according to local outlet Infobae.
It comes almost two years after Lucy Letby was first found guilty in the UK in August 2023.
Letby, from Hereford, lost two bids last year to challenge her convictions at the Court of Appeal, in May for seven murders and seven attempted murders, and in October for the attempted murder of a baby girl, which she was convicted of by a different jury at a retrial.
However, there are growing fears that her case could be a miscarriage of justice amid questions over how evidence was presented in her trials.
In February this year, in an unprecedented intervention into the conviction, 14 world-leading experts in neonatology and child health reviewed the 17 deaths and collapses of infants at the Countess of Chester Hospital and found that all had medical explanations.
Cheshire Constabulary is continuing a review of deaths and non-fatal collapses of babies at the neonatal units of the Countess of Chester and Liverpool Women's Hospital during Letby's time as a nurse from 2012 to 2016.
A separate probe by the force into corporate manslaughter and gross negligence manslaughter at the Countess of Chester Hospital also remains ongoing.
Lady Justice Thirlwall is due to publish the findings from her public inquiry in early 2026.
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