Following a tip off by a suspicious employee three nurses have been charged with the murders of 16 patients in two hospitals in Montevideo Uruguay.

Two of the nurses are suspected of killing the patients by poisoning them or putting air in their intravenous lines. The other nurse is accused of helping to cover up the crimes.

The Attorney for one of the nurses accused of killing 5 people, said he did it out of mercy explaining

"My client is conscious of his actions. He fully confessed in front of the judge, prosecutor and his defence is that he did it out of mercy."

While another attorney said another accused nurse did it to alleviate patients pain adding

"It wasn't a vicious operation in the spirit of death, rather what they wanted was to ameliorate the patients' pain."

According to authorities, most of the patients were seriously but not terminally ill.