Charges against a man arrested last year on suspicion of deliberately infecting women in Iceland with HIV have been dropped.

The decision was made by Iceland’s District Prosecutor on the grounds that it would be impossible to prove whether or not the accused man knew that he was HIV+ at the time and that a conviction was therefore unlikely.

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Two women have been diagnosed HIV+ after having intercourse with the man – an asylum seeker of Nigerian nationality – and a further 10-20 have been tested.

The man has always protested his innocence in this matter, claiming that he was unaware he himself was HIV+ when he had intercourse with the women. He was held in police custody for four weeks after his arrest, and banned from leaving Iceland for several weeks after that.