MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) – A former teacher extradited from Israel after a six-year legal battle appeared in an Australian court on Thursday to face charges of child sexual abuse.
Israeli officials extradited Malka Leifer this week after a lengthy legal process that damaged relations between the two governments and antagonized Australia’s Jewish community.
Leifer, 54, appeared at the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court over a video link from a police station where she is in the quarantine of COVID-19.
She sat with her head in her hands during the 20-minute hearing where the 74 charges against her were read out in court for the first time and did not respond when asked if she could see and hear the case.
She had previously maintained her innocence against allegations of sexual abuse by several former students at a Jewish school in Melbourne.
Her lawyer, Tony Hargreaves, told the court that Leifer had serious mental health problems and asked that she be transferred to prison because the police station did not have the necessary facilities. She also had strict religious beliefs that required special custody arrangements, said Hargreaves.
She did not ask for bail and is expected to face the court again on April 9.
Australia’s Attorney General, Christian Porter, had noted that his arrival in Australia marked the end of a long legal battle and would relieve his alleged victims. “It is now important that legal proceedings can proceed in Victoria without comments that could affect this process,” he said in the statement.
The protracted court case and repeated delays in his extradition drew criticism from Australian authorities and also from the country’s Jewish leaders.
When the charges against her began to appear in 2008, Israeli Leifer left school and returned to Israel. The two countries have an extradition treaty, but critics, including Leifer’s accusers, accused the Israeli authorities of dragging the case, while Leifer claimed that she was mentally incapable of prosecution.
Last year, an Israeli psychiatric panel determined that Leifer was lying about his mental condition, initiating extradition. In December, the Supreme Court rejected a final appeal against her extradition, and Israel’s justice minister signed the order to send it to Australia.