Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Get refuser alleged to be pedophile - extradited from US for first time

ynet   [see Arutz 7]   A man who fled to the United States without granting his wife a divorce has been extradited to Israel by the American authorities.

This is the first time an Israeli citizen is extradited over denial of a "get" (a religious divorce under Jewish Law), which is not considered a criminal offense – using other offenses he is suspected of. Israel's rabbinical courts hope this will serve as a precedent which will significantly help fight the phenomenon of "agunot" (Jewish women "chained" to their marriage).

 The couple, who are members of the ultra-Orthodox sector from central Israel, were married several years ago and had a boy and a girl. In 2010 the woman filed for divorce, claiming that her husband was treating her with disrespect and contempt, and had invested huge sums of money from their joint account in failed businesses without her knowledge.[...]

Rabbi Eliyahu Maimon, head of the Agunot Department, asked the Justice Ministry's Department for International Agreements to work to extradite the man, who he said posed a risk to public safety as a suspected pedophile. The department, which does not usually ask for extradition over suspicions which have yet to be looked into, decided to proceed with the request due to the get denial and launched negotiations with the American authorities, which bore fruit last week.  [...]

2 comments:

  1. This story is very fishy. Scant details are provided other than that he was arrested in the US and extradited one day later. That indicates he voluntarily returned to Israel and was not extradited since extradition from the US takes significantly longer than a day. Even for a simple immigration violation (overstaying a visa or entering the US illegally) take much longer than a day to extradite someone.

    The story also says he was never formally charged with pedophilia is Israel but was merely suspected and wanted for questioning. Without being formally charged he cannot be extradited.

    It certainly cannot be used for future cases for the above reasons and the fact that most other cases the husband is not suspected of other crimes that could be used as a basis for extradition.

    The US would certainly never extradite someone for simply being accused of a religious dispute in divorce proceedings. In fact, a few years ago an American citizen who refused to give his wife a Get (and in fact remarried with a heter meah) visited Israel. The rabbinical court in Israel got the Interior Ministry to refuse to allow him to return to the US unless he gave a Get. He still refused and got the US State Department involved, and the State Department forced Israel to let him leave the US without giving a Get.

    Here is that story while it was still active. He later was allowed to leave without giving a Get:

    http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/4941/u-s-issues-travelers-warning-on-israel-and-religious-divorce/

    ReplyDelete
  2. This is yet another GET MEUSA and should be reported to mamzeralert.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete

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