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

Positive Pop Star on Trial

posted: 17/08/2010

The lead singer of Germany's best-selling girl band was in a young people’s court yesterday on charges of failing to tell three male partners she had HIV and of passing on HIV to one of them. She was just 17 when she discovered she was HIV positive and when the alleged offences begun.
 

Nadja Benaissa, 28, of the group No Angels, is accused of having had sex with three partners, a few times each, between 2000 and 2004, without informing them of her HIV status. One of the men got HIV.
 

Arrested before concert in blaze of publicity

Benaissa, who found out she had HIV a decade ago when she tested as part of routine health screening in pregnancy, was arrested in a blaze of publicity in April 2009 just before No Angels were due to appear on stage at a Frankfurt nightclub. She was handcuffed by plainclothes police, driven away in front of fans, then held in custody for 10 days.
 

Campaigners for the rights of people with HIV were highly critical of the public manner in which the arrest was made, calling it a "modern witch-hunt", and have accused prosecutors of a grave breach of privacy after they made public the fact that Benaissa had HIV.
Benaissa's is the first HIV trial in Germany in which a celebrity is in the dock.
 

Doubts about transmission
Giving evidence to the court, the unidentified 34 year old man who claims she infected him said: "We had sex between five and seven times, about three of those were unprotected."
 

Nadja Benaissa, who is accused of grievous bodily harm and attempted aggravated assault, told the court in Darmstadt that she had failed to tell her partners about her condition. The singer, said she had not meant to cause any of the men injury, having been advised that it was highly unlikely that she would transfer the virus to anyone with whom she had sex. "I never wanted this to happen to any one of my partners," she said.
 

In a statement by the singer, read to court by her lawyer, Oliver Wallasch, she added: "I'd been told the likelihood of infecting someone or that I would develop the illness was more or less zero. For that reason I kept the news even from my close group of friends [as] I didn't want my daughter to be stigmatised. I told the band members because I trusted them but I never made it public because I feared that it would mean the end of the band."
 

Wait for the expert scientific evidence

The five-day trial is due to hear from Professor Josef Eberle of Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, who is expected to testify that the man may have been infected by someone else.
 

In England and Wales, prosecution guidelines say phylogenetic analysis must be carried out before cases come to court. It is exceptionally difficult now for prosecutors here to prove a HIV transmission case. If this case was in the UK, the prosecutors would have to prove none of the man’s other sexual partners could have given him HIV. We should wait to hear the evidence of the professor.
 

Witnesses in the trial, which has attracted scores of No Angels fans, are expected to include Benaissa's fellow band members, Sandy Mölling, Jessica Wahls, and Lucy Diakovska. A verdict is due on 26 August.
 

Under German law the crime of failing to disclose you have HIV to someone before having sex with them carries a prison sentence of between six months and 10 years.
 

Talking about HIV
Following the publicity about her HIV the singer has often talked publicly about it, including in a prominent speech to the Berlin AIDS Gala last November, in which she said: "I thought my life was destroyed, as well as that of my nine-year old, infection-free daughter."
But she has stressed that thanks to modern medicine "I am a completely healthy person, even if I'm HIV positive. I have a perfectly normal life expectancy."
 

No Angels, an all-girl band with four members, was discovered 10 years ago during a TV talent show when they beat 4,500 other hopefuls for the top prize. They went on to become Germany's most successful female band, often compared to Girls Aloud. Between 2000 and 2003 they sold 5 million records, including three No 1 albums and four No 1 singles, among them their most famous hit, Daylight in Your Eyes. The band broke up but reunited to take part in the Eurovision song contest in 2008, in which they came 23rd. They released a new album last summer.
 

Source