Yonatan Gezahegne Mekonnen
(CityNews.ca) ONTARIO, CANADA — A 24-year-old resident of Brampton (Ontario) is charged in a terrible case of aggravated sexual assault. But it’s what police say Yonatan Gezahegne Mekonnen didn’t tell his alleged 21-year-old victim that has cops worried.
Police contend the couple engaged in consensual sex back in January and February of this year, and that the accused was well aware that he was HIV positive at the time of the encounters – but never told the woman.
They accuse him of exposing her to the disease despite knowing he could easily pass it on to her — and by extension anyone else she may have been seeing.
Yonatan, an Ethiopian native, was arrested on Thursday on two counts of aggravated sexual assault and made a court appearance last Friday.
But now cops are worried that other young women may have fallen under his spell and been exposed to the dangerous virus. They’re looking to speak to anyone who has had contact with Mekonnen in more than a casual way.
If you think you may have crossed his path, call the Peel Police Special Victims Unit at (905) 453-2121 ext. 3460 or anonymously to Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS (8477).
27 thoughts on “Ethiopian man in Canada accused of knowingly spreading HIV”
If he knowingly transmits to the girls,he is really idiot and stupid as the same time evil.One big lesson here,please don’t commit sexual intercourse without safety precautions.The problem is that people will not have test for HIV after comeback from visit to African or other countries.There must be a means to screen individuals for HIV who cameback from third world countries as timely as possible.
Ayi Woordet! What a shame!
Cut his balls
get tested/pls
Dedebit, how can you concould that he got it from third world? Are you saying HIV only comes from third world? Your an idiot.
Most ethiopians who carry the virus are hidding them selves and continue black mailing other ethiopians.
Ohh.. what unhealthy thing if he did it knowingly.
Take care of this matters.
This message is to Dedebit, please educate yourself that Hiv does not discriminate people. You should use commonsense and protect yourself at all times. Not just with people who just visited Africa. Hiv is every where!!!!!!!!!!!!hello???
Do not trust anyone inluding yourselft. Get tested every year for Hiv or any std’s. Hepatitis is another concern for many men and women who tend to practice premartial sex or unsafe sex. If you can’t wait till you meet that special person in our life, protect yourself. When you get serious in any relationship, make sure you get tested again. Be open with your partners. That is the best way to protect yourself…….
Good luck!
Are they sure that the guy did not use condomo?
We would like to hear the great achievements of individuals too rather than only consuming criminal tragedies.
Aye, dedebit, your chose of name say a lot about you. I don’t think the guy is mentaly healty for doing what he did, but he didn’t do what he did, becase he is Ethiopian there are a lot of people that have done this around the world and they are not Ethiopian. We don’t even know if he got the HIV in Ethiopia or in Canada having sex with a candian hocker, while he was on crack. the point I am trying to make is your idea of testing all those who come back from Africa does not solve the problem that just took place. Becase there are HIV polistive people in canada also.
Modern sex has become a risky business in a free and globalized society of ours.
The, approximately, five-second sexual pleasure becomes a life-time smudge on that beautiful temple of God – the human body, God’s dwelling place.
Sexual relation between a man and a woman had been the most secrete, personal, poetic, and ennobling fact of life throughout human history. Our ancestors did not want to talk about sex openly, either in the presence or absences of their children, and the Church had been silent too about preaching the value of sex to the young boys and girls except to go and bless their marriages when the time came. In those days, the Church didn’t even bother about teaching the six commandments: “You shall not commit adultery,” for, the people generally were law-abiding citizens of the earth.
In the biblical time, if a woman touches a man’s penis, she would be sued and go to court and, if convicted, her hands would be cut off; in our time, however, a woman can do anything she wants with the man’s organs, and the man can also do whatever he pleases him with her body, and no harm was done to both of them because they are living in a free society, free for sex promiscuity, free for sleeping with any woman or man, and free for attending no church services on Sunday.
Even though every person is free to do whatever he/she wants to do, there must be a long waiting period for the young boys and the young girls before they can have sex. There are certain things in life that are permissible for everybody, but are they all beneficial for every one? Is sex beneficial for the young at age 17 or 23 or for that mater at age 30?
Most of us know how hard it is for modern young boys and girls to abstain themselves from having sex at an early age without thinking that they will have children that they must support if they get ones. The Church has been advising these young boys and girls to practice celibacy while the government is advocating the use of condoms to protect these sexually active boys and girls from having sexually transmitted diseases such as HIV. The Church and the government have done their duties in informing the public about certain diseases that can be transmitted through sex, but the modern young boys and girls have refused to listen, and many of them have fallen as victims of the HIV disease. Whom do they have to blame except themselves; of course, there are some innocent people who get infected with HIV through blood transfusion, and we must be very sorry about such innocent ones.
We have now people who know they are HIV positives but go and sleep with some ones and transmit their diseases to those persons; this is, to me, unforgivable sin if there is such the concept of sin in our modern world. Why, in the first place, an HIV positive person thinks about having sex with someone instead of thinking and praying about his/her devastating disease and trying to get help from health officials? This is nothing else but sexual immorality as that good apostle of God, St. Paul warns us in one of his letters to the Corinthians: “Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body” (1Corinthians 6:18).
In the old days, an Ethiopian boy would not have sex until he got married, and the girl whom he would marry should be chosen by his parents. The parents had first to find out the chastity of the girl and the purity of her parents, going through the chronology of her parents’ family tree.
Abandoning our Ethiopian ancestors’ culture that prohibits young boys and young girls from getting married young and that requires the gentleness and trustworthiness of both the girl’s and the boy’s parents, and the blessings of the Church, we have now produced young boys and young girls that do not want to have the permissions of their parents to get their sex partners: they can be HIV positives or they can have defective genes, and the reality is they would never know until they get devastated by the genetic disease.
To me globalization is destroying not just our economy but also our culture; everything is now global: sex is global, prostitution is global, poverty is global, terrorism is global, and HIV is global; then if everything is almost global, how can we protect our young boys and young girls from such global disease as HIV? If everything had not been global, our Ethiopian friend Yonatan Gezahegne Mekonnen would not have affected the 21- year-old girl with the HIV disease. She is not yet married to him or he to her, and the parents of both have no way of knowing such a relationship between the two exists: it is a global love, a global sex in a free society, and such global sex avoids both parents of the two from knowing what is going on between the two young new lovers.
It is for this purpose that St. Paul argues: ‘Everything is permissible for me’ “but not everything is beneficial.” ‘Everything is permissible for me’ “but I will not be mastered by anything” (1Corinthians 6:12). We know sex is permissible in this global age and free society for everybody and every time, and every place, but is it beneficial for every body – young or old? As we all know, most young boys and girls could not master their sexes but their sexes master them and expose them to various sexually transmitted diseases.
If it is done wisely, gingerly, and with one’s own wife, chosen by one’s own parents, sex is a unifying, appealing, and gratifying gift from God, and it is for this type of sex or love that many poets have written so many love songs: “Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm; for love is as strong as death, its jealousy unyielding as the grave. It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame. Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot wash it away. If one were to give all the wealth of his house for love, it would be utterly scorned” (Song of Songs 8:6-7).
In our free society, our boys and girls don’t have the patient or time to express their feelings in poetry about the true love, a love that binds the two individual together for life; they don’t care whether they know each other very well or not; they just want a quick sex; they don’t have a well-composed and written love poetry to get it out of their pockets and read it to their loved ones. What they have in their pockets is a $10 bill and, perhaps, if they are wise enough, condoms. A love made in a hurry is not a true love; it is a risky one, and at that a destroyer of one’s own body – the temple of God. St. Paul warns us in his writing: “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?” (1Corinthians 6:19)
This goes out to you dear DEDEBIT, for you truly live up to your name. infact ‘ i do respect and adore you in so many ways that i have been inspired to join your cult and waste my precious bit of time to incript a little very little tip of the giagantic outrage and contemptuous montain of hate i have for your unbleivably stupid way of thinking!!!
i mean every one said it all already and i hope you don’t still think the FTSE is something you do with your bed budy,or england and poland are exactly the same except the first half lettlers of their names…
didbe,did what ever you are,please do take a sec and think beafore you leap as the last thing we want right now is some stupid retard pouring their mental gunk on to the net on such a respectable site just because there was a keyboard infront of them.
I don’t care where ever you are from but one thing i will not let you do is blame yet another problem on ‘my africa..
my home land
Assta B. Gettu,
Not every one lives mentally in pimitive and classical times reading and writing the liturgies that are totally out of touch and too much oppresive to the women as well as to the young while giving unilateral power to old boys.
What ever some of those guys have been mumbling some 2000 years ago self servingly putting women as men’s slaves and the young as passive and unquestioning obedients works no more, no more, no more!
Here, the issue is about safe, informed and responsible behavior towards one self and the others regarding safe sex. That is what all people need to learn and accept
The practice of unsafe sex are occasionally practiced by all age and gender categories and is not at all limited to the young although they are the sexually active memebers of society.
Otherwise, the young and the active should necessarily practice sex when their sexuality and biological clock is at its climax and natural hormones are at their hight.
To say that the youth must wait too long until they get permission from some old fossils and let their prime time of sexuality pass by is an insult to the young and the dynamic, because they actually live their own personal lives and not the lives of their parents and grandparents, or worse yet the lives of those who lived some 2000 years ago.
All what the parents and school can do is to say their opinion and leave the decisions to the young.
The Habesha people are going nuts in the West. What is the problem of Habeshas, we almost hear the death of a Habesha woman at least every month in the West? What is their problem?
The young Habeshas in the West are in court almost everymonth in any given city in Germany, Sweden, Canada, London … for marital related incidents. It is common to find single Habesha and white women with Habesha babies ignored even denied by the men of parental responsibility.
I know several shameless Habesha men who neglected or even denied their parental responsibility to full Habesha children but will do everything for their half-Habesha children. We have such despicable habeshas amid of us.
I know one despicable habesha that brags of being African even Rasta, but had denied his habesha son while shameslessy looking after his half white boy.
His half white boy, to this hypocritic Habesha, is more valued than his full Habesha child.
Question to the editor:
Can we say that the girl exactly acquired HIV from Yonatan,how do we know?The girl might get it from other partners.We should know that the girl must be free of HIV before having sexual intercourse with Yonatan.I was debating with my friends about that.Before blaming Yonatan let us know about the girl.
Please Elias tell us after discussing with a doctor or any responsible person.
Hey yo stop preaching Bible here. some of are Muslims.
What I am more worried about is how many of these people lurk in Ethiopia. Knowing the psyche of many Ethiopians, it is extremely worrisome we everyone in Ethiopia soon will contract AIDS.
Dear Fabio,
Most of your points are valid; however, we have some young persons who do not follow either the Church rule – abstinence from sex – or the government advice to use condom during sex. Among young people, there has always been an urge for sex, but is it not possible to control one’s own sexual urge? Yes, it is possible to control our sexual urge; our grand parents, when they were young, were able to control their strong sexual desires, so why not our young people today? What physical or psychological harm will the young bring to themselves if they control their urges for sex? My advice to all the young is use abstinence, if not, don’t hesitate to use condom.
Postponing marriage not only helps young people from having sexual transmitted diseases, but it also helps a country like Ethiopia or other countries to reduce the population explosion.
Thank you for reading and analyzing my comment.
guy who named himself ” how do we know”: you must be an idiot. Does it matter wether she got from another person? It is about the selfish behaviour of Yonatan. We now know he knows he has HIV thus he has to be honest to those he meets. I would bevery happy if they put this egoist in prison to teach him to think also about others
YOU BETTER WATCH HOW U SAY IT..he mite have it but yet he doesnt have it as the doctor says he can live longer cus da docter says hell b okay ANYWYAS I SAY THIS CUS IM HIS COUSINNNNNN GOD will take care of himmmm soo yes he had to protect himself..but its too latte every1 had feelings but plsss dunt hurt other ppls feelings…anyways plz watch wat u say THNX
If the doctor proves that he contracts an aid virus and he intentionally engage in sexual intercourse . We should condemn such a reckless and selfish act. what an uncivilized act on behalf. shame on him!
Matthew Taylor replies:
February 12th, 2012 at 6:56 PM
Anybody who dares messes with this man is deadbeat
Its so sad.
I pity all the victims but I take pity on him even more. How is he going to live with himself having what he did on his conscience? The girls can come to peace with themselves because there was nothing they could do. They were just having a good time and never intended to hurt anyone. So I think they can get some type of psychological help to accept the situation they’re in and move on with their lives. But him … there is nothing you can say or do for him to get over what he did. And I don’t think there can be a better punishment than to put him in a dark room with just a Bible. Let him marinate on what he did for the rest of his life.
May God have mercy on his soul.
Betam yemiasazin zena new izeh sinsema betam new yazenew. Mechem yegna neger teworto alemaleku! Chigirna rehab sayansen demo endih yale werdet! Yonatan! Ebakihen arfeh wede amlakeh beselam hid!
Betselot enasebehalen. May God protect as all!
AMLAK NEFSEHEN GENET YASKEMETAT.
MECHEM HIV YALEBET SEW SAYMOT BEKUMU TESKARU BEWETALET TIRU NEW YEIL HASAB ALEGN
GOD WITH U.
But how did she know he was HIV positive??? Public Health cannot give her that information. Did she file for assault and then find out he was positive, or was he found out by public health officials who then contacted the women he slept with?? Hurting my brain…
While I do blame the man for not informing his partners, the real responsibility rests with his partners. In these days and times, sexually engaged people must use condoms for their own protection. This case is a prime example of why doing can be life saving. We must begin to take responsibility for our own selves, and not rely on others to be open and honest.
I know yonatan mekonnen what the police had said about him was not true to the point where he gave the girl anytype of diseas the girl didn’t contract any disease from yonatan mekonnen she is negative plus yall should think what you say about anyone if you don’t know him because the way you guys talk is like thinking with your ass not your mind and he is a really good friend of my and he has family support and friends support just sad to see people that don’t know him talking stupid worse then the media.