Malka Leifer

Malka Leifer's alleged victims relieved by Israeli ruling she is fit to face extradition trial

Melbourne sisters say enormity of decision ‘just staggering’ and brings former Australian principal closer to facing more than 74 charges of sexually abusing students

The alleged victims of Malka Leifer, who is wanted on more than 74 charges of sexually abusing students, have expressed shock and relief after an Israeli court ruled the former Australian principal is mentally fit to stand trial and can be extradited to Australia.

After almost 70 court hearings and a decade after she left Australia, Leifer, who allegedly abused students at the ultraorthodox Adass Israel girls school in Melbourne, may be extradited to face justice within months following a court order overnight from Jerusalem.

In a press conference in Melbourne on Wednesday morning, Dassi Erlich and her sisters Elly Sapper and Nicole Meyer, also allegedly abused by Leifer, expressed their relief, and claimed Leifer had been “exploiting the Israeli courts for six years”.

“It has taken all night for the enormity of this decision [to sink in], it is just staggering,” Dassi Erlich said. “This process has really bruised us, but it has not broken us.

“I think we could not conceive of a judgment that didn’t have the words, ‘Malka Leifer is fit to stand trial’. We couldn’t even allow ourselves to think that that would even be a possibility.”

Leifer left Australia for Israel in 2008 after the allegations, which include sexual assault and rape, emerged. Her alleged victims have been fighting to see her face charges ever since. Extradition proceedings began in 2014 but were suspended in 2016 after a Jerusalem district court judge declared Leifer unfit to face an extradition trial, her lawyers having successfully argued she was mentally ill.

Prosecutors argued she was feigning mental illness. Videos from a private investigator hired by sexual abuse organisation Jewish Community Watch revealed more than 200 hours of footage of Leifer apparently living a normal and healthy life in an occupied West Bank settlement. It led to Leifer’s arrest in February 2018 after an undercover investigation at Interpol’s request. Israel’s supreme court ordered Leifer be kept in police custody.

But her lawyers have continued to argue in dozens of hearings that Leifer was mentally unwell, placing strain on her alleged victims and sparking anger in Australia. On Tuesday, Judge Chana Miriam Lomp said she had accepted the opinion of an expert psychiatric panel that Leifer is fit to face an extradition trial.

However, Leifer’s lawyers said they will file an appeal, which would take the case to the Jerusalem high court.

Manny Waks, the founder of Kol v’Oz, an Israel-based organisation against child sexual abuse in the global Jewish community, told the ABC outside of the court that the appeal did not concern him. “Today was the most important decision – Malka Leifer is fit,” he said.

“Everything else from now on is about the procedural process,” he said. “I expect it now to move forward quite expeditiously.”

Dassi Erlich agreed. She told Guardian Australia that the chance of an appeal “doesn’t really worry us”.

“A judge saying she is fit to stand trial is huge, and I can’t see how after all they’ve tried they could find something now that would change the court’s mind on that,” she said. “We are waiting for July 20 for the extradition trial, which we have been told won’t take more than one or two hearings.

“We could see her in Australia to face justice by the end of the year.”

But the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council said the case should be heard in Israel sooner than July. “After years and years of delay and, allegedly, improper and unacceptable political interference, the sooner Malka Leifer is brought back to Melbourne to face justice, the better,” the council’s Dr Colin Rubenstein said.

The Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, said the decision was an important step. He has previously put pressure on the Israeli government to bring Leifer to justice.

“I hope victims have a sense that their fight was worth it,” he said.

The Blue Knot Foundation, which provides specialist phone counselling and support to sexual abuse survivors, said in a statement that the finding that Leifer is fit to stand trial “is a critical, but still early step, in the justice saga of the alleged serial paedophile”.

Australian support services

Lifeline: 13 11 14 or chat online lifeline.org.au

Blue Knot Foundation: 1300 657 380, Monday to Sunday, 9am-5pm AEST; blueknot.org.au

Survivors & Mates Support Network: 1800 4 SAMSN (72676), Monday to Friday, 9am-5pm; samsn.org.au

Beyond Blue: 1300 224 636; beyondblue.org.au/forums

Mensline Australia: 1300 789 978; mensline.org.au

Interrelate: 1300 473 528, Monday to Friday, 9am-5pm; interrelate.org.au