Swiss healer indicted for infecting 16 with HIV
Source: Agencies |
August 31, 2012, Friday
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Print Edition
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A SELF-STYLED healer has been indicted by a Swiss court on charges that he intentionally infected 16 people with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, in cases going back more than a decade, authorities said yesterday.
The unidentified man was indicted by a five-judge panel in Bern-Mitelland regional court on charges of intentionally spreading human disease and causing serious bodily harm, offenses that carry maximum penalties of five to 10 years respectively, said the prosecutor's office in Bern, the Swiss capital. The office said that most of the victims attended a music school that the man operated.
A spokesman for the prosecutor, Christof Scheurer, said the man also practiced as an unlicensed, self-styled acupuncturist - a trade which he is believed to have used between 2001 and 2005 as a pretext to prick and infect some of his victims with blood that was infected with AIDS. HIV is transmitted through bodily fluids such as blood, semen or breast milk.
The cases apparently came to light when Bern hospital Inselspital began to investigate similar complaints of infections in connection with a so-called healer.
Prosecutors say the probe was launched after one alleged victim filed a complaint in early 2005.
The unidentified man was indicted by a five-judge panel in Bern-Mitelland regional court on charges of intentionally spreading human disease and causing serious bodily harm, offenses that carry maximum penalties of five to 10 years respectively, said the prosecutor's office in Bern, the Swiss capital. The office said that most of the victims attended a music school that the man operated.
A spokesman for the prosecutor, Christof Scheurer, said the man also practiced as an unlicensed, self-styled acupuncturist - a trade which he is believed to have used between 2001 and 2005 as a pretext to prick and infect some of his victims with blood that was infected with AIDS. HIV is transmitted through bodily fluids such as blood, semen or breast milk.
The cases apparently came to light when Bern hospital Inselspital began to investigate similar complaints of infections in connection with a so-called healer.
Prosecutors say the probe was launched after one alleged victim filed a complaint in early 2005.
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