Jerusalem Prosecution witnesses from a private investigation into the mental health of alleged child sex offender Malka Leifer will have to deliver evidence in writing, the Jerusalem District Court has ruled.
Leifer’s case has been delayed again with the next hearing is set for May 15.
Her extradition trial is determining whether the former principal of an ultra-Orthodox Jewish girls’ school in Melbourne should be returned to Australia to face court on 74 charges of child sex abuse.
A private investigation carried out in December 2017 provided video footage countering the defence’s claim that Leifer is mentally unfit to stand trial, instead showing she was fully functional in her daily life.
In what was scheduled to be a full day in an open court, Sunday’s hearing in Jerusalem was closed for one hour and ended in less than two hours.
While two prosecution witnesses appeared to provide evidence for cross-examination, Judge Lomp ruled they would submit in writing in order to save time.
The chief executive director of Kol V’oz, an NGO preventing child sex abuse in the Jewish community, Manny Waks, described the decision as a seemingly administrative process and “yet another hollow hearing”.
“[It is] frustrating to many, but most of all the alleged victims themselves,” Mr Waks said after the hearing.
Read the article by Tessa Fox in the Brisbane Times and Western Advocate (AAP).