HIV killer Johnson Aziga says he would still have sex without a condom.

“I can't force a woman to use a condom,” he says. “If the woman is a risk taker …”

This is the best Aziga could do in trying to assure the judge at his dangerous offender hearing that if he is released from prison, he will not harm any more women, other than the two he has murdered, the five he has infected with HIV and the other four who live with the psychological scars they acquired having dodged their infected lover's bullet.

Aziga is believed to be the first person in the world convicted of murder after failing to disclose his HIV status to his sexual partners.

He understands the law. If fact, he told the court Thursday that the next time he is about to have sex with a woman, he will first tell her he is HIV positive. He is legally obligated to do so.

“I must give somebody the opportunity to make that choice,” he says. “Beyond that — it depends.”

Legally, Aziga is right.

Morally, he is so wrong, it's breathtaking.

If Aziga is ever given his freedom and if he ever manages to be on the brink of having sex with a woman to whom he has disclosed his disease and who consents to forgoing the condom ... HE STILL HAS A CHOICE.

He can choose not to have sex.

He can choose not to put another person's life at risk.

Not because of the Criminal Code of Canada. But because it is the right thing to do.

But that consideration seems to have escaped Aziga.

What is on his mind, though, is his own well-being.

If a woman wanted him to wear a condom, he would, he testified. That would prevent him from, say, being convicted of yet another count of first-degree murder or sexual assault.

Also, there's “the issue of reinfection,” he told the court. “For my own good, I don't want to get another strain of HIV.”

In April 2009, a jury found Aziga guilty of two counts of first-degree murder, 10 counts of aggravated sexual assault and of attempted sexual assault.

If he is declared a dangerous offender, Aziga, who turns 55 in a few weeks, will remain in prison for an undetermined amount of time.

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For the past two days he has been on the witness stand, something he never did at his criminal trial. It wasn't until mid-afternoon Thursday that his testimony finally moved from the hardships of his upbringing in Uganda, his Canadian university education and government job, his failed marriage and the stress of having an autistic child to the 11 women whose lives he ruined.

“This is the question everyone in the country, if not in this world, waits to know,” defence lawyer Davies Bagamiire said dramatically. “Why did you not disclose to those women your HIV status?”

Aziga offered a remarkable number of reasons:

He thought he was going to die. He was lonely. He had financial problems. He wasn't “empowered.” He was not “ready.” He was depressed. He had migraines. Public health nurses didn't tell him what to say. There is no word for penis in his native language. He was waiting until his custody battle ended. He was too drunk. He didn't want his boss to find out. He was embarrassed because he has an undescended testicle. Talking about sex is taboo in his culture. He was sometimes wearing a condom.

Oh yes. And he really wanted sex.

Aziga

Susan Clairmont's commentary appears regularly in The Spectator.

sclairmont@thespec.com

905-526-3539

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