JOHOR BARU - A 37-year-old woman who broke up with her boyfriend of 18 years could face the possibility of contracting AIDS after she was injected with a needle at a shopping mall here.

The victim, who only wanted to be known as Fanny, believed that her former boyfriend Jerry, 40, paid somebody to inject her with a HIV-positive needle after their relationship soured.

"When Jerry told me he was terminally ill, I quit my job to care for him," she told reporters during a press conference organised by the Mentri Besar's special aide Loh Teh Hian.

"Every time I told him I was leaving him, he would threaten me by saying he would inject me with a HIV-positive needle and that made me stay by his side."

She added that he became short-tempered and violent.

Fanny said that she could not take the abuse and moved out of Jerry's apartment last Tuesday, but met him at the Holiday Plaza last Sunday to talk things over.

She said that at a fast-food outlet there, she felt a piercing sensation in her back and saw a man fleeing when she turned to look.

He dropped a syringe on the ground and Jerry told her she had been injected with HIV-positive blood.

She said that although a test had showed her to be HIV negative, she had to wait six months to be sure.

Johor Baru (South) OCPD Asst Comm Zainuddin Yaakob said police were investigating the matter under the Penal Code for voluntarily causing hurt.