An apparently mentally disturbed male nurse who claimed to have murdered a series of patients in his care at the Mytilene hospital on Lesvos cannot have been telling the truth, hospital sources said yesterday.

An investigation into the 35-year old’s claims found that of the two people he claimed to have killed by letting air into their veins, one died at home of natural causes after being released from hospital and the other — who, the nurse said, succumbed to a stroke — died of different causes.

A third supposed victim, who ostensibly died after the nurse infected his dressings, is currently alive and well. Doctors are still investigating the man’s claim of having killed a group of conscripts by injecting them with serum, which, however, would not have had deadly effects.

The nurse, who has been suspended, was admitted to the Mytilene hospital yesterday to see a psychiatrist.