Community Service for HIV+ Popstar
posted: 26/08/2010
Updated 27 August
The HIV-positive German popstar accused of infecting her former partner was given a two-year suspended sentence and is required to do 300 hours of community service work, if possible working with an organisation that helps people with HIV.
Nadja Benaissa, 28, admitted having unprotected sex and not telling her partner she has HIV, as German law requires. The law is different in the UK.
The No Angels singer was found guilty of causing bodily harm to one man, and of two cases of attempted bodily harm.
Benaissa admitted she had sex with three partners without telling them she has HIV. One of them later tested HIV positive.
Virus evidence unchallenged
The court ruled that she had "in all probability" infected one of her lovers, who contracted HIV at the time of their relationship and that she had endangered the life of another, who remains free of the virus. Similar accusations towards the singer made by a third former lover, which were originally included in evidence, were not heard in order to speed up the trial.
The prosecution evidence given by the expert German virologist, Professor Josef Eberle of Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, said there was little doubt that Benaissa had infected the man, because they both had a very similar strain of the virus, a rare form which was first discovered in West Africa.
However this evidence went unchallenged (because she pleaded guilty) and it is notable that the judge only said that 'in all probability' she infected him. In a criminal case in Britain 'in all probability' is not good enough - she has to be proved the source of his infection 'beyond reasonable doubt'.
Having a similar strain of HIV, even if this is rare in Germany, doesn't prove he could not have been infected by someone else with the same strain. Until a few years ago the Crown Prosecution Service in Britain made the same sweeping claims about people who shared the same rare strain of HIV. Then expert virologists for the defence here demonstrated that this proves nothing except that two people have the same strain of HIV. The man could have got that same strain from someone else.
She could have faced up to 10 years in jail, but prosecutors sought a lenient sentence because she confessed and expressed remorse.
Benaissa was arrested very publicly in Frankfurt last year, shortly before she was due to perform a solo concert, and spent 10 days in custody.
Pressures and a hard life
The five-day trial, which took place in a youth court in Darmstadt as Benaissa was just 16 when the first offences took place, heard detailed evidence of the pop star's troubled youth. Benaissa spent time living on the street, where she developed a drug addiction. She had a child when she was 16.
Stop and Think
For those of us who are quick to say: how could she? I would like to ask a few questions: could you imagine finding out you are pregnant, and that you also have HIV, at 17? Can you imagine the fear that you could possibly infect the baby, and the anxiety that the medications you need to take in order to prevent the transmission may harm you and the baby? Can you imagine fearing for your own future? How would you tell your partner, or your ex, or the person you are hoping to have a relationship with? And what could the consequences be?
Source BBC
Update Source The Guardian
Stop and Think from HIV Policy Speak Up blog
Statement by German HIV organisation Deutsche AIDS-Hilfe (in English) on HIV and the Criminal Law
HIV criminalisation blog
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