Alleged abuse victims angry after photos surface of wanted former principal ‘living free’ in Israel

AUSTRALIA/ISRAEL
ABC News

By Middle East correspondent Sophie McNeill

Victims say they are angry a school principal wanted in Victoria on 74 charges of child sexual abuse has been allegedly spotted at a religious festival in Israel, despite her lawyers’ claims she is too ill to attend two years of extradition hearings.

Israeli prosecutors have told the ABC they are examining purported photos of Malka Leifer taken last week in a town in northern Israel.

Police want Malka Leifer returned to Melbourne, but for two years she has been fighting her extradition to Australia in the Israeli courts.

For the alleged victims of Ms Leifer’s abuse, like 29-year-old Dassi Erlich, the surfacing of the photo has turned her world upside down.

Starting when she was 15, Ms Erlich said she endured years of sexual abuse at the hands of Ms Leifer, then principal of her ultra-orthodox Jewish girls’ school in Melbourne.

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