The trial of Malka Leifer, a former Haredi girls’ school principal accused of sexually abusing her students in Melbourne, commenced on Tuesday, two years after she was extradited to Australia from Israel, where she fled in order to evade prosecution 15 years ago.
Since her extradition in January 2021, several preliminary hearings have been held, and a Melbourne court deemed Leifer fit to stand trial. But it took until last September to set the Tuesday opening hearing session during which focused on the selection of a jury.
Some 80 potential jurors were seen entering the closed hearing during which the sides negotiated the list down to 15 permanent members. Leifer, who has remained behind bars since her extradition, was present for the hearing on Tuesday.
The case is being heard before Victoria County Court Judge Mark Gamble and is expected to last roughly six weeks.
On Wednesday, the defense and prosecution will provide opening statements in the trial’s first open hearing. One one of the complainants is expected to testify on Thursday.
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Leifer faces some 90 charges, including 70 relating to child sex abuse.
Her defense team has long maintained that Leifer is innocent, pleading not guilty to the charges.
A number of gag orders have been put in place, barring Leifer’s alleged victims from speaking publicly about the trial. The three complainant sisters — Nicole Meyer, Dassi Erlich and Elly Sapper — led a campaign for over a decade to bring their former principal back to Australia to face justice.
Adass Israel ultra-Orthodox girls school headmistress Malka Leifer (left) with her students, among them Nicole Meyer (center) in 2003. (Courtesy)
“I’m relieved and delighted that this day has finally arrived and we look forward to some semblance of justice being served,” said Manny Waks, head of Voice Against Child Sexual Abuse, an Israeli-based organization fighting child abuse in the Jewish community.
“We stand in support of all those impacted by this trial,” he said.
Leifer left Israel to take a job at the Adass Israel school in Melbourne in 2000. When allegations of sexual abuse against her began to surface eight years later, members of the school board purchased the mother of eight a plane ticket back to Israel, allowing her to escape before charges were filed.
It took until 2014 for her to be arrested as part of an Interpol operation, but hearings were postponed due to claims by Leifer’s defense team of sudden bouts of a debilitating condition. A Jerusalem court suspended proceedings in 2016, deeming her mentally unfit to stand trial. She was rearrested in 2018 after being filmed appearing to lead a fully functional life.
After over a year’s worth of additional hearings, Jerusalem District Court Judge Chana Lomp concluded that the evidence regarding Leifer’s health was still inconclusive and ordered a board of psychiatric experts to determine whether the former principal had been faking mental incompetence.
In February 2020, the panel filed its conclusion that Leifer had been faking, leading Lomp to make the same determination several months later. That ruling was followed by the judge’s September 2020 decision to green-light the extradition sought by Australia.
The Leifer affair strained ties between Israel and Australia, with frustration peaking within the Australian Jewish community when allegations came to light that Israel’s then-deputy health minister, Yaakov Litzman, was pressuring state psychiatrists to diagnose Leifer as mentally unfit to face justice. The accusations came after the physician assigned to the case changed his assessment three times regarding Leifer’s mental state.
Last year, Litzman plead guilty to breach of trust, admitting to having abused his power while avoiding jail time. He was slapped with a $907 fine and an eight-month suspended sentence.
