A HIV-positive "predator" has been sentenced to 14 years in prison in what may be the most extensive case of its kind in Canada.
Clato Mabior recklessly put the lives of six young Manitoba women at risk by hiding his illness and then engaging in unprotected sex. He was convicted earlier this year on six counts of aggravated sexual assault, plus additional charges of invitation to sexual touching and sexual interference. None of the women tested positive for the life-threatening virus.
Mabior, 31, a Sudanese immigrant, will be deported from Canada but only after his sentence expires. He was given double-time credit for 30 months already spent behind bars, leaving another nine years left to serve.
The Crown had been seeking up to 24 years in prison for Mabior, who preyed on vulnerable young girls for sex.
One of his victims repeatedly broke down in tears as she described Mabior raping her after he lured her from a temporary Child and Family Services "shelter" inside a downtown city hotel with the promise of drugs and alcohol. She was only 12 years old at the time.
"I was scared. He has a life-threatening disease and he didn't tell me he had it," the girl told court in her testimony.
The girl said Mabior -- who she knew as "K-Dog" -- had oral, vaginal and anal sex with her on several occasions and never disclosed his illness. She later found out from another teenage friend he was HIV-positive. She said Mabior ignored her protests to stop and would ply her with beer and even crack cocaine on one occasion inside his Sherbrook Street rooming house.
Queen's Bench Justice Joan McKelvey said Mabior's conduct was "deplorable and despicable... and must be condemned in the strongest possible terms."
"Those that are infected with HIV cannot inappropriately and indiscriminately engage in sexual relationships for their own pleasure without regard to the consequences to others," she said. "The accused preyed upon these vulnerable women, many of whom were underage and came from significantly compromised circumstances. Further, these women were supplied with alcohol and/or drugs and lured into a sexual relationship by a sexual predator."
Mabior was arrested in early 2006 following an unprecedented public warning by police and the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority that prompted several young women to come forward -- many of them teenage runaways. Police in Brandon, Calgary, Vancouver, Toronto and London, Ont., were also notified about Mabior, since he lived in each city after immigrating to Canada from Sudan in 2000.
Mabior was cleared on charges involving three additional women after McKelvey said their evidence left her with a reasonable doubt. Mabior was seeking to be acquitted of all charges based on medical evidence that shows the risk of transmission was extremely low. He claimed that excused him from his "duty to inform" his partners.
McKelvey disagreed, saying "a significant risk of serious bodily harm existed."
"Despite medical warnings to the contrary, he engaged in unprotected sexual intercourse with many of these complainants. Even in those circumstances where protection was used, these women remained at risk," she said. "He knowingly withheld that information from his sexual partners on the basis that in all likelihood they would not have engaged in sexual contact with him."
Earlier this year, another African immigrant was sentenced to eight years behind bars for having unprotected sex with three Winnipeg women without telling them he was HIV-positive. The 34-year-old -- who can't be named under a court order -- will also be deported after finishing his sentence.
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