Claim: Swiss police arrest "healer" accused of infecting 16 with HIV.
Verdict: SUPPORTS

Retrieved passages:
title: Healer of Berne
text: Healer of Berne The case of the Healer of Berne (German "Heiler von Bern") involves an Italian-Swiss music teacher and owner of a acupuncture practice which operated without a license. He is accused of knowingly infecting at least 16 people with the HIV virus, and 14 of them were also infected with Hepatitis C. The acts were carried from 2001 to 2005 in the Swiss capital, Bern. A manager who in 2004 was jabbed in his back during the acupuncture treatment and subsequently was tested positive for the HIV virus set the medical investigation into motion. His clues were only

title: Healer of Berne
text: acquitted for serious bodily injury, and instead be tried for minor bodily injury as well as proliferation of human diseases. Reuters.com: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-swiss-healer-idUSBRE92L0NG20130322 Healer of Berne The case of the Healer of Berne (German "Heiler von Bern") involves an Italian-Swiss music teacher and owner of a acupuncture practice which operated without a license. He is accused of knowingly infecting at least 16 people with the HIV virus, and 14 of them were also infected with Hepatitis C. The acts were carried from 2001 to 2005 in the Swiss capital, Bern. A manager who in 2004 was jabbed in his back during

title: Healer of Berne
text: followed up in a criminal investigation after several other patients accumulated at Bern's main hospital, the Inselspital, who also were infected with the same strain of the virus. The blood used for infecting the victim was, over the course of several years, drawn from a man who was promised a potential cure for his HIV infection. According to the criminal charges, two former girlfriends of the acupuncture therapist were also infected by him. The trial at the regional court Bern-Mittelland began on March 6, 2013. The accused denied any involvement in the infections. When the trial opened, he hid for

title: Criminal transmission of HIV
text: called 'the Bulgarian nurses affair', concerns the trials, appeals and eventual release of six foreign medical workers charged with conspiring to deliberately infect over 400 children with HIV in 1998, causing an epidemic at El-Fatih Children's Hospital in Benghazi, Libya. The defendants, arrested in 1999, were one Palestinian medical intern and five Bulgarian nurses (often termed "medics"). All of the medics were heavily tortured for months to extract confessions. The torture process is described in details in the book Notes from Hell, co-written by Nikolay Yordanov and one of the nurses, Valya Chervianashka. As a result, three of the medics

title: Bernard Rappaz
text: francs (= approx. 3.5 million euro). He also made claims about "healing powers of marijuana". Rappaz was sentenced to six years in jail. The state's attorney had asked for ten years. On March 20, 2010, he was imprisoned in Sion. He joined in a hunger strike to protest against what he considered unlawful criminal proceedings against him. He was transferred to the prison wing of "Inselspital" (University Hospital of Bern). The Conseil d'État Esther Waeber-Kalbermatten ordered a force feeding for the first grant in July 2010. On July 21, the Valais authorities gave him house arrest at his residence in

title: Criminal transmission of HIV
text: remand prison cell on 30 November 2009 after having made two unsuccessful applications to be released on bail in prior weeks. Three HIV-positive men, Peter Mulder, Hans Jurgens and Wim Dekker, were jailed in 2008 on charges of attempting to inflict grievous bodily harm after drugging and raping 14 men, some of whom they injected with their own HIV-infected blood. Twelve of the victims were HIV-positive or suffering from AIDS at the time of the trial. In Poland under Art. 161 of the Criminal Code, persons who knowingly risk infecting others with HIV are liable to be jailed up to

title: Criminal transmission of HIV
text: he was found guilty of five counts of aggravated assault and 14 counts of attempted aggravated assault. He was sentenced to ten years in prison. He was also ordered to pay 45,000–55,000 euros compensation to the five women that contracted the virus. In the Federal Republic of Germany on 16 August 2010, Nadja Benaissa of the German pop music group No Angels admitted to sex with several men while knowing her HIV-positive status, and infecting one of those several, who subsequently brought the case against her. She faced prison, but was instead given probation (2 years) and community service. Women

title: HIV trial in Libya
text: kinds of machines, one with a crank and one with buttons."" Doctor Zdravko Georgiev the husband of Kristiana Vulcheva, came to Libya after his wife was arrested. He was charged along with the others but ultimately was found not guilty of all charges after having been once convicted of currency violations. The World Health Organization (WHO) report (1999) describes the visit performed by the WHO team (Dr. P.N. Shrestha, Dr. A. Eleftherious and Dr. V. Giacomet) to Tripoli, Sirte and Benghazi the 28th of December 1998 through 11 January 1999; while the Bulgarians were still on staff. There have been

title: HIV trial in Libya
text: on AIDS. On 6 May 2004 the Criminal Court in Benghazi sentenced to death by firing squad; Ashraf al-Hadzhudzh, Kristiyana Valtcheva, Nasya Nenova, Valentina Siropulo, Valya Chervenyashka, and Snezhana Dimitrova, finding them guilty for the intentional infection of 426 Libyan children with AIDS. Dr Zdravko Georgiev was found guilty of illegal transactions in foreign currency and sentenced to four years in prison and a fine of 600 dinars. He was ordered released for time served. In public after the conviction Colizzi called the scientific evidence used against them "so irrational it's unbelievable" and said the verdict read "like a bad

title: HIV trial in Libya
text: his wife (Valtcheva) and was subsequently detained and tried on the charge of illegally transacting in foreign currency. Several Libyans were also arrested and tried on non-capital offences—Abdul Azis Husein Mohammed Shembesh, Abdul Menam Ahmed Mohammed al-Sherif, Idris Maatuk Mohammed al-Amari, Salim Ibrahim Suleyman Abe Garara, Mansur al-Mansur Saleh al-Mauhub, Nureddin Abdulhamid Halil Dagman and Saad Musa Suleyman al-Amruni. Ashraf al-Hadzhudzh was defendant number one in the case. In the prosecution's view he was a man in a deadly criminal ring of female nurses dedicated to a plot involving agents of foreign governments; large sums of money; illegal, adulterous sex;

title: HIV trial in Libya
text: Eric Favereau was published in the French paper Libération on 2 June 2000 entitled "Libye : Six Bulgares accusés d’être à l’origine de 393 cas de sida Assassins d’enfants ou boucs émissaires de la Libye ? " (Libya: six Bulgarians accused of causing 392 Aids cases - Child killers or Libya's Scapegoats?). Libya had requested help and France, Italy and Switzerland had received some of the sick children. Eighty children were sent to France in May 1999. The Swiss paper Neue Zuercher Zeitung followed with the article "Bulgarians as Scapegoats" and the Washington Times picked up the story. In April

title: HIV trial in Libya
text: HIV trial in Libya The HIV trial in Libya (or Bulgarian nurses affair) concerns the trials, appeals and eventual release of six foreign medical workers charged with conspiring to deliberately infect over 400 children with HIV in 1998, causing an epidemic at El-Fatih Children's Hospital in Benghazi, Libya. About 56 of the infected children had died by August 2007. The defendants, arrested in 1999, were a Palestinian medical intern and five Bulgarian nurses (often termed "medics"). They were first sentenced to death, then had their case remanded to Libya's highest court, and were sentenced to death again, a penalty which

title: Human rights in Libya
text: HIV trial in Libya (or Bulgarian nurses affair) concerns the trials, appeals and eventual release of six foreign medical workers charged with conspiring to deliberately infect over 400 children with HIV-tainted blood in 1998, causing an epidemic at El-Fatih Children's Hospital in Benghazi. On 6 May 2004, a Libyan court sentenced the workers to death. They were eventually remanded to Bulgarian custody in 2007, and subsequently pardoned. The Libyan government filed complaints about the matter with the Arab League before the government's overthrow in 2011. In 2006, Amnesty International called for an independent inquiry into unconfirmed deaths that occurred in

title: HIV trial in Libya
text: was intentional. Another Libyan virologist Salim Al-Agiri was summoned by the defense. He told the court that the infection at the Benghazi children's hospital was due to lack of prevention and poor control. The prosecutors called for the death penalty based on Nassya Nenova's confession. Nenova admitted in writing to injecting children with contaminated products that she had gotten from the Palestinian Ashraf al-Hadzhudzh. According to the confession she was unaware that they contained HIV, and believed she was testing a new drug. Nenova withdrew her confession before the Libyan People's Court in 2001 and told that court they were

title: Ashraf Al Hajuj
text: Nasya Nenova, Valya Chervenyashka, Valentina Siropulo and Snezhana Dimitrova). In February 2000 began the first trial against them. They were accused for deliberately infecting the children with HIV, conspiracy and adultery. The nurses and Al-Hajuj had recognized that the confessions were extracted under torture they were subjected to during the first year of their detention. In May 2004 they were sentenced to death by shooting. The defence team told the court that HIV was present in the hospital of Benghazi before the nurses began working there in 1998. In December 2005, the Libyan court commuted the sentence and ordered a

title: HIV trial in Libya
text: that "precautionary measures" had been taken against Bulgarian doctors and nurses working at the Benghazi Children’s Hospital. Most of the nurses were recruited by Bulgarian state-owned company Expomed to work at the Libyan hospital, where pay was considerably higher than they could receive at home, beginning work in February 1998. On 7 March 1999, six members of the group subjected to "precautionary measures" were formally arrested on a warrant in connection with the case of infecting children in Benghazi with HIV. The group consisted of Ashraf al-Hadzhudzh, a Palestinian intern, and Bulgarian nurses Kristiyana Valtcheva, Nasya Nenova, Valentina Siropulo, Valya

title: Ashraf Al Hajuj
text: Ashraf Al Hajuj Ashraf Ahmad Al-Hajuj (also spelled Ashraf Jumaa El Hagoug) () (born 25 October 1969 in Alexandria, Egypt ) is a Palestinian-Bulgarian medic who was the principal defendant on the HIV trial in Libya. Born in 1969, he moved together with his parents to Libya in 1972 from Egypt, where his father was working as a senior teacher of mathematics. Al-Hajuj grew up and studied in Libya. He was in the last month of his internship when he was arrested and accused of infecting more than 400 children with HIV. The co-accused were five Bulgarian nurses (Kristiana Valcheva,

title: HIV trial in Libya
text: in Benghazi "an odious crime" and questioned who was behind it."Some said it was the CIA. Others said it was the Mossad Israeli intelligence. They carried out an experiment on these children." He went on to say that the trial would be "an international trial, like the Lockerbie trial." The defendants all plead not guilty. The Prosecution submitted the Defendant's confessions in evidence, but the defendants all repudiated their confessions. They gave interviews and testified at trial that they were forced to confess by the use of torture. This led to charges being filed against 10 Libyan security personnel, some

title: Criminal transmission of HIV
text: groups were outraged at the possibility of a woman being charged for negligently spreading HIV. She denied any intent to infect, apologising profusely and saying "When I was arrested I realised that the way that I had dealt with the illness had been wrong... I made a big mistake... No way did I want my partner to be[come] infected." She stated that she concealed the infection to avoid hurting the success of her band. Benaissa has claimed she had been told by doctors that the risk of passing on the virus was "practically zero". The HIV trial in Libya, also

title: Criminal transmission of HIV
text: come forward with complaints bringing the total to six. The eight charges included that he "with reckless disregard for the safety of others caused – or attempted to cause – grievous bodily harm to five males aged 17, 20, 24, 26, and 31, plus a female aged 19." He faced charges of "willfully and without justification or excuse causing in a male aged 20 and a female aged 19 a disease, namely HIV." The trial set for 2010 did not proceed as Glenn Mills, accused of knowingly exposing fourteen young people to HIV, was found dead in his Mt Eden