Cops raid home of healer in blood trial
2013-03-15 18:04
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Switzerland
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Geneva - Swiss police on Friday stormed the Bern home of
a self-proclaimed healer who failed to turn up for his trial on charges of
injecting 16 people with HIV-tainted blood.
Bern police arrested the unnamed 54-year-old man and a
woman in the raid, they said in a statement, without providing further details.
The man had reportedly been holed up in the house for 24
hours as police tried to talk him out after he refused to attend a hearing in
Bern.
The man, who has been on trial since 6 March for
injecting 16 people with blood tainted with the virus that causes Aids, did not
turn up for two hearings this week.
When the court requested that police bring him to the
courthouse on Thursday, he refused to co-operate and locked himself in the
house, threatening to use a firearm, the ATS news agency reported.
Prosecutors have called for a prison sentence of 15 years
for the man, a natural medicine healer who denies the charges and claims to be
the victim of a conspiracy.
