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Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers in Aus­tralia have expressed out­rage at the lat­est set­backs in the bid to extra­dite Mal­ka Leifer from Israel to Aus­tralia to face 74 charges involv­ing alle­ga­tions that she sex­u­al­ly abused at least eight pupils under care while she was prin­ci­pal of the Adass Israel school in Mel­bourne.

On 23 Sep­tem­ber 2019, Judge Chana Lomp of the Jerusalem Dis­trict Court ordered that Leifer sub­mit to yet anoth­er round of psy­chi­atric tests to ascer­tain her men­tal capac­i­ty to stand tri­al. There have already been more than 30 such tests. Those seek­ing Leifer’s extra­di­tion have pro­duced evi­dence to sug­gest that she has been feign­ing men­tal inca­pac­i­ty to avoid extra­di­tion.

The case has come before the court more than 50 times.  Israel’s Deputy Health Min­is­ter Yaakov Litz­man has been accused by Israeli police of seek­ing to influ­ence at least one psy­chi­a­trist in Leifer’s favour.  Litz­man and Leifer are both mem­bers of the Gur cha­sidic sect.

On 2 Octo­ber 2019, Israeli Judge Ram Wino­grad ordered that Leifer be released from prison, where she was being held pend­ing the out­come of the case, and allowed to remain in home deten­tion with her sis­ter.

Anton Block, Pres­i­dent of the Exec­u­tive Coun­cil of Aus­tralian Jew­ry, the peak nation­al body rep­re­sent­ing the Aus­tralian Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty, described the delays in the case and the alle­ga­tions of polit­i­cal inter­fer­ence as “a stand­ing indict­ment of Israel’s jus­tice sys­tem”.

“These devel­op­ments are adding to the trau­ma and pain already endured by for­mer pupils of Leifer whom she alleged­ly sub­ject­ed to sex­u­al abuse”, Mr Block said. “They have been incred­i­bly brave and dig­ni­fied in cam­paign­ing for Leifer’s extra­di­tion.  They are enti­tled to jus­tice, and they are enti­tled to it now”.

“We com­mend­ed Fed­er­al Attor­ney Gen­er­al Chris­t­ian Porter for under­tak­ing to raise the mat­ter per­son­al­ly with his Israeli coun­ter­part when he vis­its Israel lat­er this year”, Mr Block added. “We would also like Prime Min­is­ter Scott Mor­ri­son to raise the issue, as his pre­de­ces­sor did.” 

Mr Block not­ed that the ongo­ing denial of jus­tice to Leifer’s accusers is also caus­ing pain to Israel’s many friends and sup­port­ers in Aus­tralia.  “When present and for­mer polit­i­cal lead­ers in Aus­tralia who have been long-stand­ing sup­port­ers of Israel take the Israeli jus­tice sys­tem to task over its han­dling of this case, then it’s time for the act­ing gov­ern­ment in Israel to take notice and act.  The approach of Yom Kip­pur would seem like an espe­cial­ly appro­pri­ate time for a turn away from injus­tice towards jus­tice”, he con­clud­ed.

Con­tact
Peter Wertheim AM | co-CEO
ph: 02 8353 8500 | m: 0408 160 904 | fax 02 9361 5888
e: pwertheim@ecaj.org.au | www.ecaj.org.au