Israel on Monday (January 25th) extradited Malka Leifer, a former ultra-Orthodox Jewish school principal accused of sexually abusing several of her students in that country, to Australia, the justice ministry said.
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A ministry statement "
confirmed the deportation
" after Israeli media reported that Leifer, an Israeli, boarded a plane to Australia early Monday morning.
According to Australian media, she faces 74 counts of sexual abuse of young girls.
His extradition comes hours before the suspension of international flights to and from Ben-Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv, as part of new health measures aimed at limiting the spread of variants of the coronavirus.
Leifer fled Australia in 2008 after a former student filed a complaint against her.
According to Israeli media, she lived with her family in the Israeli settlement of Immanuel, in the northern occupied West Bank.
She was arrested in 2018. Israel had authorized her extradition in mid-December after the Israeli Supreme Court rejected an appeal by Leifer, ending six years of legal battle.
"
After many years, after an abject attempt to pass herself off as mentally ill and, in light of the Supreme Court ruling, it is our moral duty to allow her to be prosecuted,
" had said the then Minister of Justice, Avi Nissenkorn.
The case had caused tensions between Israel and Australia, two allied countries.
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