Johnson Aziga (born 1956) is a Ugandan-born Canadian man formerly residing in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, notable as the first person to be charged and convicted of first-degree murder in Canada for spreading HIV, after two women whom he had infected without their knowledge died. Background Aziga was a former staffer at the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General. According to CBC News, he was diagnosed with HIV in 1996. Aziga, who was married at the time, used protection with his wife, who knew about the diagnosis, but soon began having sex with others and got a divorce. He had unprotected sex with 11 women without telling them he was HIV-positive. He has confessed to having 50-100 sexual partners during this period, all of them white. He met most of his victims at bars and clubs in the Hamilton area, and many of them had unprotected sex with other HIV-positive African men. Seven of these women later tested positive for HIV, two of whom died of complications from AIDS in December 2003 and May 2004. Health officials and law enforcement were allegedly aware of Aziga's pattern of intentionally spreading HIV but did not take action until 2003 for unknown reasons. Several Canadian courts have ruled that persons who are not informed that a sexual partner is HIV-positive cannot truly give consent to sex. Arrest and trial Aziga was arrested in August 2003. On November 16, 2005, Justice Norman Bennett of Hamilton ruled there is sufficient evidence for Aziga to stand trial. His trial date was initially set for May 2007 but was moved back several times. As of May 2008, the trial was set to begin October 6, 2008. The decision to try Aziga was criticized by Richard Elliott, deputy director of the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, who described the decision as "not particularly helpful" and argued that it may lead to a "dominant impression out there of people living with HIV as potential criminals, which is not an accurate or fair representation." Aziga was the first Canadian ever to be criminally convicted on charges for knowingly infecting others with the HIV virus without telling the victims. He was designated a dangerous offender. In an earlier case, Charles Ssenyonga of London, Ontario was prosecuted on the lesser charges of aggravated assault and criminal negligence causing bodily harm, although he died of meningitis before a verdict was rendered in his case. In