A MUSICIAN serving a ten-year jail term for passing on HIV to unsuspecting lovers will today launch an Appeal Court bid to clear his name.

Feston Konzani, who came to Middlesbrough as an asylum-seeker from Africa, is expected to argue that his conviction is unsafe and should be overturned. If his appeal fails, he is also expected to challenge the length of his sentence.

The 28-year-old was found guilty by a Teesside Crown Court jury last May of inflicting grievous bodily harm on three women.

Konzani came to Britain from Malawi in 1998 and later moved into Albany Street, Middlesbrough. He was diagnosed with HIV in November 2000, but carried on having unprotected sex with women.

Jailing Konzani, the Recorder of Middlesbrough, Judge Peter Fox, told him the lives of his victims had been substantially curtailed.

The appeal will be heard by Lord Justice Judge, the Deputy Chief Justice of England and Wales, Mr Justice Grigson and Judge David Radford.