Canada jails Ugandan for spreading HIV

New Vision
Thursday, 9th April, 2009
By Hellen Mukiibi
and Agencies

A Ugandan living in Canada has been found guilty of murdering his two sexual partners by infecting them with HIV that causes AIDS.

Johnson Aziga was last week convicted on two counts of first-degree murder, 10 counts of aggravated sexual assault and one of attempted aggravated sexual assault.

Aziga faces a mandatory life sentence when he returns to court on May 7 to be sentenced for what international experts believe are the first murder convictions for reckless transmission of HIV/AIDS.

Court heard that he infected seven women. Four other partners did not contract the virus. He was convicted by a nine-man, three-woman jury in Montreal on April 4 following two-and-a-half days of deliberation. Aziga, 52, lives in Hamilton, Ontario. He holds two university degrees and worked as a research analyst in the Ontario Attorney General’s department.

Canadian press reported that Aziga, a separated father of three children, stood in the prisoner’s box and faced the jury as the foreman read out the 13 guilty decisions from the verdict sheet.

He did not flinch even when pronounced guilty of the murders, which carry automatic life sentences with no chance of parole for 25 years.

Prosecutors contended two women, identified as H.C. and S.B., were murder victims because, in effect, they were injected with a “slow-acting poison” since they didn’t know Aziga had the human immunodeficiency virus, which can lead to AIDS.

Testimonies indicate that Aziga, who was diagnosed with HIV in 1996, was counselled and advised against having unprotected sex and to tell his partners of his health status, but he kept up his reckless sexual behaviour before and after he separated from his wife.

Despite two orders issued to Aziga, under Ontario’s Health Protection and Promotion Act, to abstain from intercourse unless he first disclosed his HIV-positive status and wore condoms, he refused to change his behaviour.

Aziga may have slept with 20 women in subsequent years, although only 11 of his partners were part of the trial.
Different court sessions heard that when Aziga was being treated with antiretroviral therapy he lied to several of his partners when asked directly about his HIV status.

Two of his sexual partners died in December 2003 and May 2004 from AIDS-related diseases after being infected by Aziga. Five more remain HIV-positive.

Aziga was arrested in August of 2003, and committed to stand trial about two years later. He was also accused of aggravated sexual assault of 11 other women he allegedly had sex with, and these women have said they did not know he was HIV positive.

The Supreme Court of Canada in 2005 ruled that one partner cannot give true consent for sexual relations if the other fails to disclose an HIV infection.
The trial was adjourned four times.

Aziga veritably tore through lawyers, hiring and firing at least four different counsels or sets of counsels. For almost four years, the cost of his defence was borne by Legal Aid Ontario, the independent but publicly funded agency that administers the province’s legal-aid programme.

Some Canadian legal experts say they are concerned about a precedent set by Aziga’s murder conviction, Canwest News Service reported.

Alison Symington of the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network said the conviction was troubling. “Do we as a society think not telling someone you are living with a sexually transmitted infection is the equivalent of murder?” Symington asked. “We really need to stop and have this debate.”

Crown Attorney Karen Shea said the government had to act against an individual “engaging in conduct knowing full well that he is endangering the health and lives of others.”

In Uganda, the intentional spread of HIV/AIDS is not covered by the Penal Code. But the HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control Bill, now in Parliament, seeks to make this a criminal offence.

A court in Uganda recently jailed a 47-year-old for 14 years for having sex with a mentally ill 19-year-old-girl and infecting her with HIV/AIDS.

UNAIDS warns that using criminal laws in cases other than intentional transmission could create distrust between medical workers and patients.

Article at: http://www.newvision.co.ug/D/8/12/677578