By Paola Loriggio
An Ontario man who did not disclose his HIV-positive status to sexual partners has been denied day and full parole as the Parole Board of Canada noted his preoccupation with sex and pornography remains "entrenched" in his behaviour.
Johnson Aziga, 67, appeared before a parole board panel last week and a written decision was released Monday.
Aziga was found guilty in 2009 of two counts of first-degree murder as well as 10 counts of aggravated sexual assault and one count of attempted aggravated sexual assault.
The murder convictions were believed to be the first of their kind in Canada at the time. The court later also declared Aziga a dangerous offender, which comes with an indefinite sentence.
Aziga appealed, and earlier this year, Ontario's top court overturned the murder convictions and replaced them with two manslaughter verdicts due to incorrect jury instructions. The court also set aside two aggravated assault convictions.
The appeal court ruled, however, that Aziga's life sentence and dangerous offender designation should stand.
In its decision, the parole board panel said it weighed several mitigating and aggravating factors, with the consequences suffered by Aziga's victims among the most significant aggravating factors.
The panel noted Aziga's participation in sex offender rehabilitation programs and his engagement in his correctional plan, but said he nonetheless continued to "migrate toward the collection and use" of pornography.
The panel pointed to an incident in July 2020, when Aziga was found "participating in inappropriate correspondence that involved circulating pictures of naked females." And in August of this year, it said, correctional officers found a large amount of explicit pornography in his cell that he had made, categorized and bound in spiral books using the binding machine in the institution's library.
The board said Aziga told them other offenders had given him magazines when they left the institution and he had been collecting the images since 2011 "as a coping mechanism."
"Your sexual preoccupation appears to remain entrenched in your behaviour," the panel wrote.
Aziga's risk to reoffend is considered "substantial," and he is deemed to pose a high risk of intimate partner violence, it said. Recent reports also indicate Aziga appears reluctant to acknowledge his limitations or flaws, which may lead him to miss or minimize potential problems.
Mitigating factors included his sobriety since his arrest and his record of employment while in custody.
In the end, the board deemed Aziga not ready for release in the community, saying the "next logical steps" would instead be for him to seek a transfer from his medium security facility to a minimum security one, as well as a series of escorted absences from the institution.
"Absent the gradual approach to release, your risk is not yet manageable," it wrote.
Aziga learned he was HIV positive in 1996, and a doctor counselled him and his then-wife on safer sex practices, the document said. He and his wife separated in 1998, and between the spring of 2000 and fall of 2003, he had unprotected sex with 11 women without disclosing his HIV status, it said.
Two of them died from complications related to HIV and five more were infected with the virus, it said.
Public health officials had ordered Aziga to disclose his condition, wear a condom during sexual activity and provide the names of his sexual partners since his diagnosis so they could be alerted, but he failed to do so, the parole board document said.
Banner image: THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP/Matt Rourke
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 19, 2023.
