TheStar.com | Crime | Guilty verdict in Hamilton HIV murder case Guilty verdict in Hamilton HIV murder case
MARIANNE BOUCHER FOR THE TORONTO STAR Johnson Aziga, 52, right, appears in a Hamilton court last year on the first day of his landmark first-degree murder trial.
Apr 04, 2009 07:31 PM
Barbara Brown
Hamilton Spectator
HAMILTON–A Hamilton jury rendered a historic legal verdict Saturday, making Johnson Aziga the first HIV-positive man in Canada to be convicted of murder for recklessly spreading the virus that causes AIDS.
Aziga, 52, of Hamilton, was found guilty as charged of two counts of first-degree murder and 10 counts of aggravated sexual assault, as well as being convicted on one count of attempted aggravated sexual assault.
The trial, which began in October, is the first in Canada involving someone being charged with lethally infecting partners with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
The nine men and three women on the Superior Court jury started deliberations Thursday and sat for about 25 hours before arriving at their verdict around 5 p.m.
The one count of aggravated sexual assault about which the jury had a reasonable doubt concerned a victim who had difficulty in the witness box remembering the dates when she first met Aziga and had unprotected sex with him.
The woman also had unprotected sex with another Ontario man who was subsequently found to be HIV positive and who carried the same rare African strain of HIV as Aziga.
Previous cases in Canada have established that an HIV-positive person cannot be convicted of aggravated sexual assault if an alleged victim is already infected prior to having unprotected sex with the accused person.
In that situation, the person can only be convicted of attempted aggravated sexual assault.
Aziga is to be sentenced on May 7.
Assistant Crown attorney Karen Shea told the judge she expects to have victim impact statements from many of the surviving complainants and their families.
Aziga is guilty of endangering the lives of 11 women by having unprotected sex and failing to warn them that he was HIV positive, even though he had been aware of it since 1996 and was under public-health orders to do so.
Seven of the women became infected, two died of AIDS-related cancers and four were exposed but tested negative.
One women, identified only as S.B., died of AIDS-related cancers three weeks after police videotaped an interview with her about her relationship with Aziga.
In the police interview played at trial, S.B. said Aziga had never told her about his HIV infection during their summer of romance in 2000.
"No, he never did. Not at any time," the bed-ridden woman said in a barely audible voice.
"Did you ever bring that up?" the officer asks.
"Unfortunately not," S.B. replied.
In common with other victims, S.B. said she would not have had sex with him had she known he was infected.
At trial, the defence had argued Aziga was depressed and ill and did not have the state of mind to deliberately endanger the lives of his sexual partners.
Aziga, a native of Uganda and a former employee of Ontario's Ministry of the Attorney General, has been in custody since his arrest in August 2003.
150pxIn what is described as a Canadian first, a jury on Saturday convicted an Ontario man of first-degree murder in the AIDS-related deaths of two women.

Johnson Aziga, 52, was accused of knowingly infecting his sex partners with the HIV virus which can cause AIDS. The trial dealt with the cases where two women had died from AIDS-related complications, while 11 others were either infected or exposed to HIV. Aziga was informed he carried the HIV virus in 1996 and was instructed by public health authorities to inform his sex partners of his condition. However, the trial prosecutors alleged that Aziga disregarded these orders and continued to practice unprotected sex without warning his partners he carried HIV.

The defence counsel for Aziga argued that he suffered from various problems including depression and an organic brain disorder, which rendered him incapable of causing intentional harm.

During the trial in Hamilton, Aziga also faced 11 counts of aggravated sexual assault and was convicted in all but one of these charges. The 11th charge was replaced by conviction on a lesser charge of attempted aggravated sexual assault. The murder convictions mean that Aziga faces sentence for which he could not be paroled for 25 years.