'Don Juan' HIV taxi rapist jailed: 'I swear on my kids you are going to be shocked'
He aquired AID’s from his Dentist … as one so often does! Has he given the name of his Dentist to Authorities?
SMH
JOEL GIBSON
June 23, 2010 - 1:28PM
An HIV positive Sydney taxi driver who raped three female passengers had to be dragged out of court after being sentenced to 13 years in jail.
After the sentencing, Hassan Nagi, 38, stood holding a picture of his children and said he wanted to say something to the media: "I swear on my kids you are going to be shocked. Put the date down that I am going to be released. You will get a big shock."
Nagi, a father of three from Bexley, who pleaded a chronic case of "Don Juanism" in court, will be eligible for parole in October 2018.
Hassan Nagi ... pleaded for a lesser sentence.
His total prison term is for 13 years, 10 months and four days.
The victims, aged 31, 23 and 27, were raped after hailing Nagi's cab at night. Two of them were heavily intoxicated after a night out. Their identities have been suppressed.
Nagi's lawyer said he had been diagnosed with "a man's equivalent of nymphomania".
District Court Judge James Bennett said today that the offences were in the "serious" category.
He said that Nagi had abused a position of trust: people who do the right thing and do not drive home at night put trust in taxi drivers to get them safely to their destinations.
Justice Bennett also said there was an element of premeditation in his acts, because he had driven the women to out-of-the-way places.
Justice Bennett said he was not persuaded by a psychiatrist's diagnosis that Nagi was suffering from "Don Juanism".
"Implicit in that is the proposition that he was a master-seducer of women, blessed with charm and persuasive skills without the need to resort to the basic [methods that he adopted]," he said.
Outside court, Nagi's mother claimed that her son was innocent, healthy and that reports of his HIV status were untrue. She claimed the whole story would come out eventually.
The victims attended court for the sentence.
A relative of Nagi was heard to say in the direction of the victims: "Your lies are dripping off you."
One of the victims responded, "Read about it in the papers."
Nagi took an HIV test after pleading guilty in February last year to six counts of sexual assault.
When it came back positive, his lawyers told the victims.
In a decision published this month, the Court of Criminal Appeal said there was no evidence he had infected his victims or his family.
It is understood Nagi's family believes he contracted the virus from a dentist, despite his admission of frequent sex with prostitutes since the age of 20.
Justice Bennett confirmed that Nagi had undertaken an HIV test in 2003 that had come back negative, so he could have been infected any time since.
But he also said the risk of infection by a dentist was extremely low.
Nagi's lawyer had told the court that an article published in the Herald about his client was further evidence of the hardship he would inevitably face due to his HIV status and it should help to reduce his sentence.
The judge said while Nagi’s HIV status meant that the punishment he suffered would be greater, it was hard to quantify how much it should reduce his sentence.
Nagi's battle to keep his infected status a secret lasted 15 months and went all the way to the High Court.
The case pitted the principles of open justice against public health interests.
Joel Gibson is the Herald's Legal Affairs correspondent.
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