AUSTRALIA/ISRAEL
Australian Jewish News
Alleged sex offender Malka Leifer will live in Israel as a free woman, a Jerusalem court has ruled, bringing the long-running case for her extradition to stand trial in Australia crashing down.
“It is the worst possible outcome,” Manny Waks, the Australian anti-abuse activist told The AJN shortly after the judge announced his decision. “I have spoken to some of the alleged victims and they are devastated, simple as that.”
Waks voiced alarm that former Melbourne Adass Israel school principal Leifer, who is supposed to stand trial in Victoria on 74 indecent acts committed against pupils before she fled Australia in 2008, will be allowed to be near Israeli children and youth. “There is no justice for the alleged victims and children in israel are endangered,” he said.
For the last two years, alleged victims, activists, and the Australian embassy of Tel Aviv have been pinning their hopes of a trial on extradition proceedings that could get her to the dock in Victoria. But proceedings never really got underway — she repeatedly failed to attend court and her legal team argued that was legitimate because the spectre of the courtroom brought on psychotic episodes.
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