Melbourne: 15 years after evading capture by escaping to Israel, a former headmistress was found guilty on Monday of sexually assaulting two sisters at an ultra-orthodox Jewish school in Australia.
The jury found Malka Leifer guilty of all 18 charges, including raping a student at a sleepover and assaulting a second teenage student sexually at a school camp.
Nine additional charges against her were dropped. When she was initially charged with sexual assault in 2008, Leifer served as the headmaster of the Adass Israel School in Melbourne.
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Leifer, who holds dual citizenship in Israel and Australia, eluded capture before being apprehended, setting off a protracted legal battle involving more than 70 extradition hearings.
The mother-of-eight who had been on the run was finally flown back to Australia in 2021, where she was tried in February of this year. Leifer, a member of a secretive Jewish sect outside the city, was accused by the prosecution of sexually assaulting three sisters who attended the Adass Israel School.
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Leifer was found guilty of sexually assaulting two of the sisters by the jury following a seven-week trial and seven days of jury deliberations. As the verdicts were announced, Leifer, who has consistently maintained her innocence, sat with her hands folded and looked straight ahead. Leifer's abuse "held us hostage for many years," according to Dassi Erlich, one of the sisters.
She told reporters outside the court, "Today we can begin to reclaim that power that she stole from us when we were children. Elly Sapper, a different sister, claimed that justice had been done. Malka Leifer was finally found responsible for abusing the three of us, Elly Sapper said, adding that the verdict may not accurately reflect that.
Leifer used her prominent position within the Adass community to take advantage of the sisters, the court heard. Leifer allegedly committed one student's rape in 2006 after inviting her to stay at her house to "sleep over for kallah lessons," a type of pre-wedding etiquette course that also covers sexual education.
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Prosecutor Justin Lewis stated in his opening statement to the court that Leifer told the students on other occasions that she was preparing them to be wives.