UNITED KINGDOM
The Tablet
01 July 2016 | by Sean Smith
A judge in Kosovo has rejected an application to extradite Laurence Soper, the fugitive former abbot of Ealing Abbey in west London, because the crimes he is accused of have expired in the Balkan state.
The Times reported that the Metropolitan Police will appeal the decision to bring Laurence Soper back to the UK for trial. Soper, 72, is wanted in connection with historic child sex abuse cases in England. The former monk, who is no longer a member of the Ealing community, taught at the abbey school, St Benedict’s, in the 1970s and 1980s.
He disappeared from the Benedictine university at Sant’Anselmo in Rome, where he had been working as bursar, in 2011, after failing to return to London for further police questioning about alleged abuse.
A judge sitting in Peja, the western district of Kosovo where Soper was arrested last month, rejected the extradition request this week because the alleged crimes had overrun the 30-year statute of limitations. The Met will appeal and another hearing is expected to take place imminently at the appeal court in the capital, Pristina, The Times reported.
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