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Dear Pres­i­dent Rivlin

Re: Mal­ka Leifer extra­di­tion case

We refer to your vis­it to Aus­tralia in late Feb­ru­ary, when you were wel­comed whole-heart­ed­ly not only by the Aus­tralian Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty but also by Australia’s polit­i­cal and busi­ness lead­ers, among many oth­ers.  You would have been able to expe­ri­ence first-hand the enor­mous good­will towards Israel that exists in Aus­tralia, as well as our respect and affec­tion for you.

Dur­ing your vis­it you were asked about the appli­ca­tion that has been before the Jerusalem Dis­trict Court since 2014 to extra­dite Mal­ka Leifer from Israel to Aus­tralia to face 74 counts of child sex­u­al abuse.  As you know, Mal­ka Leifer’s lawyers have resist­ed her extra­di­tion, main­tain­ing that she is men­tal­ly unfit to par­tic­i­pate in court pro­ceed­ings.

So many aspects of this case have become noto­ri­ous: the unex­plained rever­sals of tes­ti­mo­ny by Jerusalem Dis­trict Psy­chi­a­trist Jacob Charnes about Mal­ka Leifer’s men­tal fit­ness; the rec­om­men­da­tion by Israeli police that Yaakov Litz­man be charged with manip­u­lat­ing psy­chi­atric evi­dence in the case while he was Israel’s Deputy Health Min­is­ter; the evi­dence that Mal­ka Leifer has been malin­ger­ing; and the seem­ing­ly nev­er-end­ing rounds of psy­chi­atric assess­ments.

As each court appear­ance has passed with­out result­ing in an extra­di­tion order, fur­ther trau­ma has been inflict­ed on the sur­vivors and the rep­u­ta­tion of Israel’s jus­tice sys­tem has been tar­nished. We are utter­ly appalled by the news that Mr Litz­man may be Health Min­is­ter in the new Israeli gov­ern­ment, while the accu­sa­tions against him con­cern­ing the ongo­ing Mal­ka Leifer case remain unre­solved.

Some of Israel’s most pas­sion­ate sup­port­ers with­in the Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty and in the wider com­mu­ni­ty in Aus­tralia have pub­licly expressed their dis­may about the delays that have occurred, and oth­er irreg­u­lar aspects of the case.

Dur­ing your vis­it to Aus­tralia you gave an assur­ance that  if hear­ings sched­uled dur­ing the week of your vis­it did not see progress towards Mal­ka Leifer being extra­dit­ed to Aus­tralia, you would per­son­al­ly meet with the Chief Jus­tice of Israel to dis­cuss how this mat­ter can be expe­dit­ed.

Sad­ly, there has been no such progress.  Jus­tice con­tin­ues to be delayed and denied for Das­si Erlich, Nicole Mey­er, Elly Sap­per and Mal­ka Leifer’s oth­er alleged vic­tims.

Even as Israel, Aus­tralia and indeed the world are focused on deal­ing with the Covid19 pan­dem­ic cri­sis, we appeal to you to make good on your pledge dur­ing your vis­it to Aus­tralia to make per­son­al con­tact with the Chief Jus­tice of Israel and do any­thing else with­in your pow­er to dis­cuss how this mat­ter can be expe­dit­ed and brought to a final­i­ty with­out fur­ther delay.  This is the unan­i­mous desire of the organ­ised Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty in Aus­tralia, and of Israel’s many friends in the wider Aus­tralian com­mu­ni­ty.  Jus­tice demands no less.

Yours sin­cere­ly