By: TPS Staff
Alleged sex offender Malka Leifer from Australia is mentally fit to stand trial and can be extradited to face trial in her country, a Jerusalem court ruled Tuesday.
The court’s decision that Leifer is mentally fit for trial follows some six years of legal proceedings against the alleged offender.
“After this decision was made, the way has been paved to discuss the extradition petition in a focused, agile and efficient way,” the prosecution stated.
The hearing about Leifer’s extradition was set for July 20.
A psychiatric panel in January decided that the alleged sex offender, who escaped to Israel from Australia, is mentally fit to stand trial and has been feigning mental illness.
Leifer, a former Ultra-Orthodox girls’ school principal, is charged in Australia with dozens of cases of child abuse. She fled to Israel in 2008 following allegations that she had sexually abused students at the Adass Yisroel school in Melbourne on 74 different occasions.
“Too many emotions to process!!! This is huge!” Tweeted Dassi Erlich, one of Leifer’s alleged victims.
“This abusive woman has been exploiting Israeli courts for 6 years! Intentionally creating obstacles, endless vexatious arguments – only lengthening our ongoing trauma!” she added.
Former Health Minister Yaakov Litzman was embroiled in the controversy when the police exposed his aid to have Leifer kept in Israel and declared unfit to stand trial.
In August of 2019, TPS reported that Israeli police announced its recommendation to indict Litzman on accounts of aiding Leifer, and preventing the closure of a food business despite decisions to shut it down for sanitary reasons.
In its announcement, the police said it had found sufficient evidence and has passed the material on to the Jerusalem District Attorney’s Office for them to decide whether or not to proceed and prosecute Litzman.
The first case the police investigated involves Leifer. Litzman is suspected of attempting to manipulate Leifer’s psychiatric evaluation to deem her mentally unfit to be extradited to Australia, where she could stand trial.
Litzman allegedly used his clout as Deputy Health Minister and met with psychiatrists who work in the Health Ministry to convince them to change their evaluation according to his wishes.
The second case related to a food business owned by Litzman’s close associate. The authorities ordered the business to close because it failed to meet sanitary standards, but Litzman allegedly stepped in to prevent the closure, using his influence on Health Ministry officials to do so.
(TPS)
