Johnson Aziga (born 1956) is a Ugandan-born Canadian man formerly residing in

Hamilton, Ontario Hamilton is a port city in the Canadian province of Ontario. Hamilton has a population of 569,353, and its census metropolitan area, which includes Burlington and Grimsby, has a population of 785,184. The city is approximately southwest of T ...

, Canada, notable as the first person to be charged and convicted of

first-degree murder Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification or valid excuse, especially the unlawful killing of another human with malice aforethought. ("The killing of another person without justification or excuse, especially the c ...

in Canada for spreading

HIV The human immunodeficiency viruses (HIV) are two species of ''Lentivirus'' (a subgroup of retrovirus) that infect humans. Over time, they cause acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), a condition in which progressive failure of the immune ...

, after two women whom he had infected without their knowledge died.

Background

Aziga was a former staffer at the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General. According to CBC News, he was diagnosed with HIV in 1996. Aziga, who was married at the time, used protection with his wife, who knew about the diagnosis, but soon began having sex with others and got a divorce. He had unprotected sex with 11 women without telling them he was HIV-positive. He has confessed to having 50-100 sexual partners during this period, all of them white. He met most of his victims at bars and clubs in the Hamilton area, and many of them had unprotected sex with other HIV-positive African men. Seven of these women later tested positive for HIV, two of whom died of complications from

AIDS Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual m ...

in December 2003 and May 2004. Health officials and law enforcement were allegedly aware of Aziga's pattern of intentionally spreading HIV but did not take action until 2003 for unknown reasons. Several Canadian courts have ruled that persons who are not informed that a sexual partner is HIV-positive cannot truly give consent to sex.

Arrest and trial

Aziga was arrested in August 2003. On November 16, 2005, Justice Norman Bennett of Hamilton ruled there is sufficient evidence for Aziga to stand trial. His trial date was initially set for May 2007 but was moved back several times. As of May 2008, the trial was set to begin October 6, 2008. The decision to try Aziga was criticized by Richard Elliott, deputy director of the

Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network The HIV Legal Network (formerly the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network) is Canada's leading advocacy organization working on the legal and human rights issues raised by HIV and AIDS. The organization actively promotes the human rights of people livin ...

, who described the decision as "not particularly helpful" and argued that it may lead to a "dominant impression out there of people living with HIV as potential criminals, which is not an accurate or fair representation." Aziga was the first Canadian ever to be criminally convicted on charges for knowingly infecting others with the HIV virus without telling the victims. He was designated a dangerous offender. In an earlier case, Charles Ssenyonga of

London, Ontario London (pronounced ) is a city in southwestern Ontario, Canada, along the Quebec City–Windsor Corridor. The city had a population of 422,324 according to the 2021 Canadian census. London is at the confluence of the Thames River, approximate ...

was prosecuted on the lesser charges of aggravated assault and criminal negligence causing bodily harm, although he died of

meningitis Meningitis is acute or chronic inflammation of the protective membranes covering the brain and spinal cord, collectively called the meninges. The most common symptoms are fever, headache, and neck stiffness. Other symptoms include confusion or ...

before a verdict was rendered in his case. In the 1999 decision '' R. v. Cuerrier'', the

Supreme Court of Canada The Supreme Court of Canada (SCC; french: Cour suprême du Canada, CSC) is the Supreme court, highest court in the Court system of Canada, judicial system of Canada. It comprises List of Justices of the Supreme Court of Canada, nine justices, wh ...

ruled that people who knowingly exposed/infected others to HIV through unprotected sex could be charged with a crime on the grounds that failure to disclose one's HIV status to a sex partner constitutes

fraud In law, fraud is intentional deception to secure unfair or unlawful gain, or to deprive a victim of a legal right. Fraud can violate civil law (e.g., a fraud victim may sue the fraud perpetrator to avoid the fraud or recover monetary compens ...

. Aziga's trial began in October 2008. Among the first revelations made in trial proceedings are claims by Aziga's former girlfriends that he lied about his HIV status and continued having unprotected sex until the morning of his arrest in 2003. Aziga's lawyers claim that no conclusive link can be shown to indicate that the deaths of his former girlfriends can be attributed to HIV/AIDS. On April 4, 2009, Aziga was found guilty of two counts of murder in the first degree, 10 counts of aggravated sexual assault, and one count of attempted aggravated sexual assault by a jury made up of nine men and three women at Hamilton Superior Court. The murder convictions resulted from the fact that Canadian jurisprudence has established that failure to disclose one's HIV status before unprotected sex means that the partner cannot give consent (as they have been deliberately deprived of information that might cause a reasonable person to reconsider), resulting in the sexual act becoming aggravated sexual assault. Under Canadian law, any death resulting from aggravated sexual assault (i.e. the two women who died as a result of HIV/AIDS complications) is automatically murder in the first degree. Aziga was sentenced to

life imprisonment Life imprisonment is any sentence of imprisonment for a crime under which convicted people are to remain in prison for the rest of their natural lives or indefinitely until pardoned, paroled, or otherwise commuted to a fixed term. Crimes for ...

with no possibility of parole for 25 years, the mandatory sentence in Canada for a conviction of first-degree murder.Jordana Huber
"Ontario man to appeal sentence in AIDS deaths"
''Canwest News Service'', 2009-04-06. Aziga has expressed his intention to appeal his conviction. On August 2, 2011, a court in Hamilton, Ont. granted a request by Crown Prosecutors to have Johnson Aziga jailed indefinitely under the Dangerous Offender act, because he is believed to be at a high risk to re-offend.

References

External links

HIV-positive man to stand trial on murder charges
CBC News, 14 November 2005

CBC News, 25 February 2005
Aziga found guilty of first-degree murder
CTV Toronto, 4 April 2009

Background

Arrest and trial

See also

References

External links

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