Acrobat from Zimbabwe in HIV infection trial
By Sarah Elks
AUSTRALIA – A circus acrobat originally from Zimbabwe deliberately infected his Australian girlfriend with HIV, after lying and promising her he was disease-free, a jury has been told.
Godfrey Zaburoni has today pleaded not guilty to one charge of intending to transmit a serious disease, but pleaded guilty to a lesser, alternate charge of grievous bodily harm.
Opening the case against Mr Zaburoni on the first day of his Gold Coast trial, prosecutor Mark Whitbread said the acrobat had repeatedly lied to his Australian girlfriend about his HIV-status.
Mr Whitbread said Mr Zaburoni came to Australia as a member of a travelling circus and was diagnosed as being HIV-positive in 1998 in South Australia. At the time, local doctors warned him to have safe sex and told him to inform his sexual partners of his HIV status.
The court was told Mr Zaburoni met his girlfriend – who cannot be named for legal reasons – at a New Year’s Eve party on the Gold Coast in 2006. The woman will testify that before they had sex for the first time, she asked Mr Zaburoni whether he had been tested for AIDS because of its prevalence in Africa.
The prosecution argues he told her he would not have been allowed in Australia without being tested. Mr Zaburoni and his girlfriend began having protected sex, but he soon told her it was more “pleasurable” for him without a condom.
They had unprotected sex many times, the court heard. The couple’s relationship continued until September 2008, when the woman ended it to move to Western Australia. The following year, she was tested for sexually transmitted diseases and told she was HIV-positive.
Mr Zaburoni was arrested in 2010, after his ex-girlfriend made a complaint to police. The key issue in the trial will be intent: whether he intended to transmit the disease to her. He has formally admitted that he was HIV positive during their relationship and that he transmitted the disease to his then-girlfriend.
The trial continues. The Australian
