SHE is Germany’s fallen angel: a pop star named Nadja Benaissa who is accused of infecting at least one lover with HIV.
At a court in Darmstadt yesterday, the 28-year-old singer from the girl group No Angels told her infected former boyfriend: “I am sorry from the bottom of my heart.”
Her five-day trial is likely to set new standards in dealing with celebrities – and to raise delicate legal questions about determining responsibility for the consequences of unprotected sex.
Ms Benaissa was arrested last year and, within days, the Darmstadt state prosecutor charged her with causing grievous bodily harm by conducting unprotected sex while knowingly suffering from HIV. She faces up to 10 years in jail.
It was a shockingly public action by the police, supposedly justified by public interest, in a country that usually protects the privacy of suspects.
It is not clear how Ms Benaissa contracted AIDS. In a statement she said: “I had been told that there was an almost zero possibility of infecting anybody or of full-blown AIDS breaking out. So I didn’t tell my friends. I didn’t want my daughter to be stigmatised.”
She did, however, tell her fellow band members who have been called as witnesses. No Angels have been hailed as the most successful girl band in continental Europe, with four No1 singles and three No1 albums.
According to the state prosecutor Ms Benaissa was told of her HIV infection in 1999. She was 17 at the time and is, therefore, being tried by a youth court.
She allegedly slept with three men on at least five occasions between 2000 and 2004 without making her condition known.
One of them, a 34-year-old former boyfriend, was infected in 2004 and was in court as a co-plaintiff. “You have unleashed a heap of misery into the world,” he told the singer yesterday.
Observers have voiced doubts about the investigation against the singer. Her defence team will be suggesting that there is no way of establishing whether the virus was passed to the former boyfriend by Ms Benaissa or another of his sexual partner.
Professor Josef Eberle, a leading AIDS researcher, has been called as a witness to testify about how much uncertainty exists on the question of HIV transmission.
AIDS campaigners said that it was not the singer’s sole responsibility to ensure that her partners used protection. “I would like to know from the prosecutor the exact scope of a man’s responsibility when conducting unprotected sex,” Gisela Friedrichsen, of Der Spiegel magazine, said.
German law considers failure to disclose HIV before sex a crime but intention to harm must be proven. The verdict is due on August 26.
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