EDINBURGH – A judge in Edinburgh has confirmed the identity of a man fighting extradition to the United States to face rape charges – after he claimed he was someone else.
Sheriff Norman McFadyen said he was “ultimately satisfied on the balance of probabilities” that the man who insisted his name was Arthur Knight was in fact wanted fugitive Nicholas Rossi.
Rossi, 35, was arrested last year after checking himself into a hospital in Glasgow, western Scotland, with Covid-19.
It is alleged he faked his own death in the United States, where he is wanted in Utah for rape and sexual assault, before fleeing to Scotland.
McFadyen accepted fingerprint, photographic and tattoo evidence that “Mr Knight is indeed Nicholas Rossi, the person sought for extradition in the United States.”
An Interpol red notice for Rossi’s arrest, featuring multiple headshots and his fingerprints, was shown at the three-day hearing at Edinburgh Sheriff Court.
After his arrest and throughout a series of preliminary court hearings, Rossi maintained he was in fact Arthur Knight, an orphan from Ireland, who had never been to the United States.
Medical staff and police could identify him by comparing his tattoos with pictures of Rossi on the wanted notice and fingerprints.
But he claimed he had been tattooed while comatose in hospital and that his fingerprints had been meddled with.
McFadyen dismissed those claims as “implausible” and “fanciful” and said his repeated name changes were “consistent with someone who was hiding from someone or something”. – AFP, November 11, 2022
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