Swiss police on Friday stormed the Bern home of a self-proclaimed healer who failed to turn up for his trial on charges of injecting 16 people with HIV-tainted blood.

Bern police arrested the unnamed 54-year-old man and a woman in the raid, they said in a statement, without providing further details.

The man had reportedly been holed up in the house for 24 hours as police tried to talk him out after he refused to attend a hearing in Bern.

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The man, who has been on trial since March 6 for injecting 16 people with blood tainted with the virus that causes AIDS, did not turn up for two hearings this week.

When the court requested that police bring him to the courthouse on Thursday, he refused to cooperate and locked himself in the house, threatening to use a firearm, the ATS news agency reported.

Prosecutors have called for a prison sentence of 15 years for the man, a natural medicine healer who denies the charges and claims to be the victim of a conspiracy.