Australian prosecutor says former Israeli principal feigned mental illness to avoid extradition

By ROD McGUIRK
Associated Press

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — An Australian prosecutor says the former principal of an Australian Jewish school feigned mental illness in a seven-year battle to avoid extradition on child sex abuse charges. Malka Leifer fought her extradition in Jerusalem courts from 2014 until 2021, when she was flown from Israel with her ankles and wrists shackled. She appeared in a court Thursday for the second day of a sentencing hearing after she was convicted in April of sexually abusing two students in Melbourne between 2003 and 2007. Prosecutor Justin Lewis told Judge Mark Gamble that Leifer deserved less credit in her sentence for time she spent in custody and under house arrest in her native Israel because she had “improperly frustrated and delayed the extradition proceedings.”