the 1999 decision R. v. Cuerrier, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that people who knowingly exposed/infected others to HIV through unprotected sex could be charged with a crime on the grounds that failure to disclose one's HIV status to a sex partner constitutes fraud. Aziga's trial began in October 2008. Among the first revelations made in trial proceedings are claims by Aziga's former girlfriends that he lied about his HIV status and continued having unprotected sex until the morning of his arrest in 2003. Aziga's lawyers claim that no conclusive link can be shown to indicate that the deaths of his former girlfriends can be attributed to HIV/AIDS. On April 4, 2009, Aziga was found guilty of two counts of murder in the first degree, 10 counts of aggravated sexual assault, and one count of attempted aggravated sexual assault by a jury made up of nine men and three women at Hamilton Superior Court. The murder convictions resulted from the fact that Canadian jurisprudence has established that failure to disclose one's HIV status before unprotected sex means that the partner cannot give consent (as they have been deliberately deprived of information that might cause a reasonable person to reconsider), resulting in the sexual act becoming aggravated sexual assault. Under Canadian law, any death resulting from aggravated sexual assault (i.e. the two women who died as a result of HIV/AIDS complications) is automatically murder in the first degree. Aziga was sentenced to life imprisonment with no possibility of parole for 25 years, the mandatory sentence in Canada for a conviction of first-degree murder. Aziga has expressed his intention to appeal his conviction. On August 2, 2011, a court in Hamilton, Ont. granted a request by Crown Prosecutors to have Johnson Aziga jailed indefinitely under the Dangerous Offender act, because he is believed to be at a high risk to re-offend. See also R. v. Cuerrier Aki Hakkarainen Trevis Smith Carl Leone Criminal transmission of HIV References External links HIV-positive man to stand trial on murder charges, CBC News, 14 November 2005 HIV-positive man faces 2 murder charges for unprotected sex, CBC News, 25 February 2005 Aziga found guilty of first-degree murder, CTV Toronto, 4 April 2009 Related video Feature report: Should you be legally obligated to disclose your HIV status?, CBC News: The Hour, 1 December 2005. 1956 births Living people Criminal transmission of HIV HIV/AIDS in Canada People with