After losing a protracted legal battle in Edinburgh, Nicholas Rossi—a rape suspect who faked his own death—will be extradited to the United States.
The 35-year-old’s international game of hide and seek has been effectively put to an end thanks to a Scottish court’s decision on Wednesday. When he was located in 2021 using an Interpol red notice, he was found unconscious in a COVID hospital ward in Glasgow.
“I conclude that extradition would be compatible with the Convention rights within the meaning of the Human Rights Act 1998,” Sheriff Norman McFadyen said in a statement to the Edinburgh Sheriff Court. As a result, I must forward Nicholas Rossi’s case to the Scottish ministers for their consideration in deciding whether to extradite him.
“I draw the conclusion that he is equally dishonest and deceptive as he is evasive and shrewd. What is ultimately a straightforward case has undoubtedly been complicated and prolonged by these unfortunate aspects of his character, the speaker continued.
Nicholas Rossi: Who is he?
He is a wanted man in the eyes of American authorities who fled to the UK to avoid being tried in his home country. Rossi, meanwhile, has asserted that he is Arthur Knight, an Irish orphan.
Rossi was declared to be the suspect by a Scottish court in November of last year after his tattoos and fingerprints matched records from the National Crime Agency. Rossi, on the other hand, has disputed this conclusion by asserting that the tattoos were placed there while he was unconscious due to a coronavirus.
He has also asserted that authorities in the US and the UK were working together to jail him.
Rossi stated that he had received a non-Hodgkin lymphoma diagnosis in January 2020. Numerous news outlets reported Rossi’s passing in 2020 after the FBI opened a fraud investigation into him and Rhode Island police had issued a warrant for his arrest for failing to register as a sex offender. The media outlets cited his family’s anonymous testimony and his obituary as evidence of his passing.
He was tracked down by authorities in October 2021 while he was receiving COVID treatment in a hospital in Scotland. He was taken into custody in December of the same year on suspicion of several other crimes, including an alleged rape in Utah in 2008.
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