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Peter Mwai
Kenyan Peter Mwai gained considerable infamy as the first person in New Zealand to be convicted of intentionally spreading the HIV virus.
UPDATE
Mwai was released from Mt Eden Prison on Wednesday 24 June 1998 after serving two third's of his seven year sentence for having unprotected sex with 5 women while he knew he carried the HIV virus that leads to Aids.
Mwai was driven straight to Auckland Airport and put on a plane home to Kenya.
His lawyers and supporters had launched and 11th hour legal battle to save him from deportation. Auckland barrister, Dawn Patchett,stated that Mwai should be allowed to spend his last days with the six year old daughter he has with his New Zealand de-facto wife. " I believe it's inhumane to send away a dying man and to seperate him from his daughter, who is going to lose him soon anyway."
"He's terminally ill."
The appeal failed.
The question to be asked is do his victims have this sort of support?
A black Kenyan musician, Peterson Owen Murimi Mwai arrived in New Zealand in October 1990 on a visitor’s permit. He had travelled extensively and came to New Zealand to pursue a relationship with a woman he had met on his travels.
Mwai came to police attention when one of his partners complained s
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| Detective Mark Kaveney subpoenaed Mwai's medical records and found he had been diagnosed HIV positive in May 1993, 4 months prior to sleeping with the victim. |
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he was HIV positive after having sex with him. Detective Mark Kaveney subpoenaed Mwai’s medical records and found he had been diagnosed HIV positive in May 1993, four months prior to sleeping with the victim who had reported him. He was arrested and charged with wilfully infecting with a disease and was jailed and could not leave the country.
‘Attractive and promiscuous’
Mwai was said by his victims to be an attractive and promiscuous individual who, through his public performances, had many opportunities to meet women. Following publicity about his arrest, more women reported to police they had had unprotected sex with him, after the date of his HIV positive test. Some of his victims spoke out through television and other media of the trauma and fears for the future, arising from their relationships with an HIV carrier.
Mwai’s defence insisted that with English a second language, he had not understood what HIV-positive meant. The prosecution contended he knew he had the disease and deliberately engaged in unprotected sex. He was found guilty and sentenced to 7 years jail. Occasional media reports have said Mwai is terminally ill.
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New Zealand's first convicted A.I.D.S spreader |
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