HIV-positive man charged with deliberately infecting three women

LONDON (AFP) Nov 11, 2003
An HIV-positive man was charged in Britain on Tuesday on suspicion of knowingly infecting two women and a girl with the virus, a week after a landmark ruling jailed another man for deliberately passing on HIV to his lovers.

Feston Konzani, 26, was accused at the court in Teeside of inflicting "grievous bodily harm" on the two women aged 25 and 26 and a young girl of 15.

The three women say they became infected with HIV, the virus that leads to AIDS, after having sex between February 2000 and May 2003 with Konzani, who is from Malawi but lives in the northeastern city of Middlesbrough.

The court is using a legal precedent established last week when a London court handed out an eight-year jail sentence to a man with HIV who infected two lovers by having unprotected sex.

Kenyan-born Mohammed Dica was convicted of two counts of "grievous bodily harm", normally a charge used in cases of physical assault, the first time a person has been successfully prosecuted in England and Wales for sexually transmitting HIV.

Rene Barclay, of the state prosecution service, said of that case: "If anyone knowing or being aware that they are carrying this virus or a similar one, then recklessly infects in these circumstances, they will be liable to prosecution."

The next hearing in Kozani's case is scheduled for November 18.

TERRA.WIRE