An unlicensed medical practitioner have been convicted of murder on Thursday by a Cambodian court who sentenced him to 25 years in prison for spreading HIV among more than 270 villagers.
Authorities detected an epidemic of human immunodeficiency virus, the virus that causes AIDS, on Dec. 9 when they started testing a community in Battambang province.
They found more than 270 cases, the court heard, with one victim aged 2 and others in their 80s.
The
case is a blow to Cambodia's so-far successful efforts to cut the rate
of HIV infections after the virus spread almost uncontrollably in the
impoverished country during the 1990s.
Authorities
decided to test villagers after a 74-year-old man tested positive for
HIV in November. The man convinced others in the village who had also
visited the same practitioner, Yem Chrin, 56, to get tested, the court heard.
"The
court found Yem Chrin guilty of operating health treatment without
license, injecting people with syringes that spread HIV and torturing
people to die," provincial court judge Yich Na Chheavy said in a verdict read to a packed courtroom.
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