/ 18 July 2001

SA MAN WHO GAVE WIFE AIDS TOLD TO PAY R1-M

A South African High Court has ordered a man to pay his wife a million rand ($121 000) in damages for infecting her with HIV, it was reported on Sunday. The court ruling is the first in South Africa in which a married woman has claimed damages after her husband wilfully infected her with the disease, the Sunday Times said. Last week, the Johannesburg High Court awarded the woman, who lives in Durban, the money for “pain and suffering, mental anguish” and medical expenses. The unnamed woman, who has a 13-year-old child, said she had met her husband while on holiday in neighbouring Mozambique in December 1995. Two months later she moved there and they were married in 1998. She said her husband was ill from the start, but she had trusted him and never asked whether he was HIV-positive. – AFP

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