ISRAEL/AUSTRALIA
ABC News
By Middle East correspondent Sophie McNeill and Fouad Abu-Gosh
Israel’s state prosecutor has failed in a bid to see Malka Leifer, the former principal of an ultra-Orthodox girls school in Melbourne, returned to house arrest in Israel.
Leifer is wanted by Victorian police on 74 charges of indecent assault and rape allegedly involving girls at the Adass Israel School in Melbourne, where she was principal from 2003 until 2008.
Last Thursday, Leifer was ruled mentally unfit to face extradition and had her home detention lifted in a move that shocked and deeply concerned Australian officials and outraged her alleged victims and Jewish community leaders in Melbourne.
Legal proceedings around her extradition were stopped for six months, during which time she will undertake court-ordered psychiatric treatment.
The ABC understands Israeli prosecutors had hoped to argue that because the case was an extradition request, the judge had the authority to continue Leifer’s home detention despite proceedings being frozen.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.