Paris, Thursday

A 15-year-old French boy who wrote a moving book about living with

Aids has died just two years after his younger brother succumbed to the

disease.

Stephane Gaudin died on Tuesday of Aids-induced septicaemia, after

receiving a contaminated blood transfusion eight years ago.

His brother Laurent, 11, whose filmed slow death moved millions of

television viewers to tears, died in 1991.

Both boys were infected by blood products that have contaminated 1250

haemophiliacs and killed more than 300 so far in a scandal which

contributed to the Socialist government's rout in the general elections

in March.

Stephane's death came as the re-trial of four former senior public

health officials accused of knowingly allowing Aids-tainted blood to be

given to haemophiliacs in 1985 reaches a climax with the final defence

and prosecution pleas.

The trial hearing observed a minute's silence at the request of

lawyers for the victims today.-- The teenager's dream was to fly around

the world and he had just passed his licence to fly ultra-light

aircraft. His father Patrice was building an aircraft for him in his

garage.

''I am crushed. Eighteen months ago we were a family of five. Now

three are left,'' Patrice Gaudin told the daily Le Parisien.

His third son, five-year-old Alexandre, was born after the tainted

blood products were withdrawn in late 1985 and has not been infected by

Aids.