Medical Doctor Sentence To 25 Years Infected 200 With HIV

An Appeal Court on Friday upheld a lower court’s sentence of an unlicensed medical practitioner to 25-year imprisonment for infecting more than 200 villagers with HIV.

Yem Chrin, 58, was arrested in 2014 in Northwestern Battambang province of Cambodia after most of his patients tested positive for HIV and accused him of transmitting the virus via the reuse of unsterilised needles.

In December 2015, the Battambang Provincial Court found him guilty of committing “cruel torture” and decided to sentence him to 25 years in prison.

The court also ordered him to pay between $500 and $3,000 in compensation to each of more than 100 victims who filed the complaints.

“The Battambang Provincial Court’s decision against Chrin is correct, so the Appeal Court decides to uphold the decision,” the Presiding Judge, Yet Molin, said as she pronounced the verdict on Friday. 

Chrin did not appear in court to hear his verdict.

During a hearing in August, Chrin, who had been a village medical practitioner for almost 20 years, acknowledged his mistake and pleaded with the court to reduce his jail sentence to 10 years.

He told the court that he re-used syringes on multiple patients because it was difficult to get new ones and he did not know that the unsterilised syringes could spread HIV.

The HIV outbreak in Battambang province’s rural Roka community, which came to light in 2014, has left some 290 people infected, with at least 20 people dead from complications so far. The victims aged between three years and 80 years.

Cambodia currently has no fewer than 74,000 people living with HIV/AIDS, while about 80 per cent of them were receiving anti-retroviral drugs. (Xinhua/NAN)