HIV murder conviction stirs Canada debate

TORONTO, April 5 (UPI) -- Some Canadian legal experts say they are concerned about a precedent set by a man's murder conviction for killing two sex partners by infecting them with HIV.

Johnson Aziga, 52, of Hamilton was convicted on two counts of first-degree murder and 10 counts of aggravated sexual assault Saturday, following 2 1/2 days of jury deliberation, Canwest News Service reported. He is to be sentenced May 7.

Alison Symington of the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network said the conviction was troubling.

"Do we as a society think not telling someone you're living with about a sexually transmitted infection is the equivalent of murder?" Symington said. "We really need to stop and have this debate."

Prosecutors contended two women, identified only 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 human immunodeficiency virus, which can lead to AIDS.

University of Toronto Professor Mariana Valverdes says risk of criminal prosecution may lead to more people hiding their HIV status.

"It is much better public policy to institute universal measures of protection, rather than assuming that diseases spread mainly because of some people's intentionally evil behavior," she said.

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."

Aziga, a native of Uganda who worked in the Ministry of the Attorney General in Ontario, was diagnosed with HIV in 1996. He was counseled not to have unprotected sex and to tell his partners of his health status, prosecutors said.