HAMILTON, Ont. - A man believed to be the first in Canada convicted of murder through HIV transmission will testify to express his remorse, his lawyers said Wednesday, as court heard heart-wrenching testimony from his victims and their family members.
In a surprise turn at the a hearing seeking dangerous offender designation for 54-year-old Johnson Aziga, his lawyer said he wanted to testify next week to apologize for the pain and suffering he has caused.
"After reflecting very much on what has happened, Mr. Aziga now understands the effect of his actions on those victims," said lawyer Davies Bagambiire.
Aziga was found guilty in April 2009 of two counts of first-degree murder, 10 counts of aggravated sexual assault and one count of attempted aggravated sexual assault.
Aziga's eagerness to make amends was highlighted by his lawyer, who apologized to the two victims present after each of their victim impact statements.
But the apology, which comes after court heard last week that Aziga had expressed little remorse for his victims and blamed an undescended testicle for his current situation, meant little to one woman.
"If he was truly sorry he never would have done this in the first place," the woman, who can only be identified as Victim I due to a publication ban, told the court after Bagambiire's apology. "I think he's going to do it again because I so trusted him and was betrayed."
The woman, who did not contract HIV, said she still lives in fear of finding out the tests results were wrong and worries every day about infecting her grandchildren.
When she and her current partner, whose brother had died from AIDS, found out they had been exposed, they made a pact to go to a hotel with enough pills and alcohol to kill themselves so that their families would be spared the ordeal of watching them slowly die.
"I didn't want my kids to witness that and, if I had infected him, I didn't want his mom to go through it again," she said.
Aziga's convictions are related to 11 women with whom he had unprotected sex and did not tell them he had the virus that causes AIDS. Seven of the women became infected, with two dying of AIDS-related cancers. If deemed a dangerous offender, he can be jailed indefinitely. He has been in custody since his arrest on Aug. 30, 2003.
In another impact statement read to the court by Crown attorney Karen Shea, the niece of a woman who died after being infected by Aziga said she will never get over having to watch one of her closest relatives "waste away to almost a skeleton," and still catches herself reaching for the telephone to call her.
"I watched the slow-motion murder of my aunt," she said. "I found the injustice unbearable. I feel robbed and I feel my aunt was robbed. We were all violated."
The daughter of one of the two women who died after contracting the disease described her mother's pain knowing she'd never see her infant grandchild grow up, and her own feelings of helplessness as she watched her mom "waste away and die."
In a video statement recorded in Nov. 17, 2003, the woman, known as S.B., said she knew "will no longer have a life" because of the disease, and while she didn't know how long she had left, she hoped "it'll be a long time."
She died two weeks later.
