A Dutch doctor who carried out euthanasia on a 74-year-old woman with Alzheimer’s has been accused of murder, in the first court case since the Netherlands legalised the procedure.

The 68-year-old retired nursing home doctor, named as Catharina A., was on Monday charged with murder for carrying out euthanasia on the woman in April 2016. However, the public prosecution is not asking for a punishment.

The doctor had given a sedative to the patient in her coffee and asked family members to hold her down when the woman appeared to struggle against a drip to administer the fatal medicine.

The controversial case comes amid a period of concern about euthanasia involving people with psychiatric problems and dementia in the Netherlands – although these represented just 3.4% of the 6,126 procedures last year.

A court in The Hague heard that the patient had an advance directive saying she wanted euthanasia if her dementia became so severe that she needed nursing home care, and “the time was right”.

But once she was in a home, she was not capable of expressing clear thought, sometimes saying 20 times a day that she wanted to die, but also expressing a wish to live.