Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2004. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Reuters NewMedia - Monday October 18, 2004
Karishma Vyas

Hans-Otto Schiemann, a 56-year-old former sailor from Schweinfurt in Bavaria, has become a figure of hate in northeastern Thailand, with posters plastered across the town of Chaiyaphum warning young women not to have sex with him.

However, since Thailand has no laws dealing with people who deliberately infect others with the AIDS virus, prosecutors have only charged him only with immigration offences.

"Thai women are bad. Thai women are witches and they're monkeys," he told reporters outside the provincial court in Chaiyaphum, 340 km northeast of Bangkok.

Residents say Schiemann, who has been in Thailand for much of the last decade, offered students aged from 15 to 17 around 4,000 baht ($100) for sex as part of a campaign of vengeance against Thai women, who he blames for his own HIV infection.

"As far as we can figure out, the motivation is a vendetta of revenge against the people of Chaiyaphum because he blames them for having infected him," one of his wife's neighbours, who did not wish to be named, told Reuters.

Sura Wisedsak of the provincial health office said that according to Schiemann's wife as many as 90 women had been deliberately exposed to HIV.

If their other sexual partners were taken into account, the number of victims could be as high as 500, Sura said.

"PLAYBOY"

Schiemann, who refused a prison blood test to confirm his HIV status, admitted he had HIV but said he had done nothing wrong, and had merely been an attractive figure in the relatively impoverished region because of his wealth.

"I'm a playboy. I'm a rich man. Everybody likes a rich man," said the ginger-haired and bearded Schiemann, who appeared in court in a brown prison shirt and navy blue trousers.

"I have the right to stay here in Thailand. This is a complete scandal. There is no justice in Thailand."

He also accused his 30-year-old Thai wife, Jiraporn Paktaku, who has full-blown AIDS, of being part of a campaign to get him kicked out of the country. "She is a crazy woman," he said. "She wants to kill me."

Schiemann is charged with overstaying a month-long tourist visa by three years and faces deportation or two years in jail if found guilty. After a six-minute hearing, the judge ruled he needed a lawyer and adjourned the case until November 15.

Deliberate transmission of the AIDS virus is a crime in many rich countries and the majority of U.S. states. A Texan man was sentenced to life in prison in 2003 for sexually assaulting an 11-year-old boy when he knew he was HIV-positive.

However, in many developing countries, including those in southeast Asia where AIDS and commercial sex are rife, effective legislation to address the problem has not been passed.

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