Kennedy Okwako A. at the Landesgericht in Würzburg A
41 year old Kenyan man, identified as Kennedy Okwako A. was sentenced
to 8 years imprisonment for having sexual intercourse with various women
without using a condom despite knowing he was infected with HIV.
Kennedy,
a Kenyan DJ and musician from Würzburg, was also a victim of the same.
In 1998, Kennedy was infected by his German wife without his knowledge.
Although he insists he wasn’t trying to revenge, he slept with eight
women without informing any of them of his status. Three of his victims
who appeared in court, a housewife, a hairdresser and the 13 year old,
were all not infected.
Kennedy
had been accussed of attempted severe bodily harm, attempted murder
(manslaughter) and sexual assault of a minor. Fortunately, there was no
evidence that he had forced himself on the minor and those charges were
dropped. Kennedy had told the court that he had slept with the young
lady, but he didn’t know she was a minor. He also accepted that he had
slept with her only once without protection but even then, the young
girl didn’t protest. Of the nine women he slept with, two had tested
positive.
The prosecutor had tried to accuse him of vengence saying that
Kennedy was infecting German women as payback to his German wife. The
court ruled out this hypothesis as unfounded.According to a psychiatrist
from the Gesundheitsamt, Kennedy had basic knowledge on what HIV was
and he always took his ARVs with no issues. Kennedy had been a regular
patient at the Gesundheitsamt, where he received counseling and also
signed a document that agreed that he had understood that he shouldn’t
have unprotected sex. In his defence Kennedy told the court that the
doctors had told him the probability of any of his partners being
infected was very low and he thought that meant it would never happen.
He was eventually charged with nine accounts of knowingly trying to infect his partners with HIV.
“I didn’t want to hurt anybody. I promise never to have unprotected
sex ever again”, Kennedy told the court before the ruling. Well, he
won’t worry about having any kind of sex behind bars though.
During the court processes, it was also discovered that he might have
slept with more than the nine women who had appeared in court. This
means that if the other women come out and press charges, Kennedy could
spend very many years in prison.
In 2002, a lady had taken him to court pressing the same charges but
the case didn’t go anywhere and Kennedy walked away without any
punishment, not even a slap on the wrist. But not even the scare of a
new process made him change his behavior. “He might have assumed he’s
behaviour wasn’t that bad because he wasn’t punished for it”, the
prosecutor told the court. In 2007, he was arrested yet again and this
time, the court process continued to completion. In that year, six women
testified against him in court and he was sentenced to 8 years
imprisonment. In 2010, three other women took him to court and this time
he got 10 years. If women continue taking him to court, Kennedy might
see his sentence increase every couple of years.Kennedy was married to
two German women and had three daughters with his many other
ex-girlfriends.
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