Man sent to jail for lying about HIV

A Ghanaian with HIV has been jailed for six months for lying in his application for New Zealand residency.

In the Auckland District Court yesterday, Judge Anne Kiernan refused to grant leave to 38-year-old Ishmael Asamoah to apply for home detention.

But she did agree to give him bail pending an appeal to the High Court against sentence and possibly conviction.

Asamoah sprang to prominence last year when his Australian wife, who contracted the disease, was awarded $727,437 in a negligence action against two Sydney doctors for not telling her about his condition.

Last month Judge Kiernan found Asamoah guilty of fraudulently ticking "no" to a question on a medical form in 2000 on whether he was HIV-positive.

He then used the form to get a residency visa and residency permit.

Asamoah was able to apply as the spouse of an Australian, who has an automatic right to New Zealand residency.

The judge said Asamoah knew in 1998 he was HIV-positive.

He did not tell his wife about his condition before they married the following year and he did not tell the New Zealand authorities, as he was required to do.

The judge said the couple had separated by the time Asamoah came to New Zealand in 2001.

He now has another partner, also an Australian, but has been denied a visitor's visa to return to Australia to visit his 3 1/2-year-old daughter by his former wife.

Labour Department lawyer Jane Rushton said New Zealand residency was highly prized.

She called for a deterrent sentence to preserve the integrity of the immigration service.

Defence counsel Melanie Coxon said Asamoah ticked the "no" box as a "basic instinct for survival".

He would die if he were returned to Ghana, where medical treatment was expensive and beyond his means.

But Judge Kiernan said she did not accept that it was a life-and-death situation that prompted Asamoah to lie on the form.

Before coming to New Zealand, Asamoah was already receiving treatment in Australia for his HIV. He could have continued receiving treatment there.

Judge Kiernan said the aggravating features were the benefit Asamoah received in the form of his New Zealand residency and essential medical treatment costing $10,000 to $13,000 a year.

There was also the risk to people in this country.

The main aggravating feature, she said, was Asamoah's premeditation - he knew as far back as 1998 that he had the condition.

The judge said there was no evidence before her that Asamoah would be deported and returned to Ghana, where he might not have access to life-saving treatment.

Her task was to sentence him for his offence, not to assess whether or not he should remain in New Zealand.

It was important that people should be deterred from giving false information on application forms to live in New Zealand.

The Immigration Service relied on honest disclosure.

Outside the court, Immigration Service fraud investigator John Marston said Asamoah's file would be sent to Wellington to assess whether his residency should be revoked.