Nicholas Rossi: US fugitive loses appeal over extradition

An American suspected of faking his own death and hiding out in Scotland has lost an appeal against his extradition.

US prosecutors want Nicholas Rossi returned to his homeland to face rape charges in the state of Utah.

Throughout the two year legal process Rossi, who continues to insist he is actually Arthur Knight, has claimed to be the victim of mistaken identity.

Justice Secretary Angela Constance signed an order granting Rossi's extradition in September.

Last week he represented himself during a five hour appeal hearing before a panel of three senior judges. They have now issued a ruling that upheld the findings of the sheriff in the case.

It concluded that nothing placed before the court demonstrates that any trial in Utah "would be either unfair or that any of his other [human] rights would be violated if extradited."

Rossi, 36, was being treated for Covid when he was arrested at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow on 13 December 2021.

He had claimed to have been the victim of mistaken identity, and insisted he was an orphan from Ireland called Arthur Knight and that he had never been to the US.

But Edinburgh Sheriff Court heard that his tattoos and fingerprints matched those of Rossi, with Sheriff Norman McFadyen ruling that he was indeed the fugitive in November of last year.

Rossi claimed he had been given the tattoos as part of an attempt to frame him while he was lying unconscious in hospital.

Sheriff McFadyen rejected Rossi's claims to have been the victim of mistaken identity as "implausible" and "fanciful" and said his repeated name changes were "highly suspicious" and "consistent with someone who was hiding from someone or something".

Authorities in the US have said Rossi was known by several aliases, including Nicholas Alahverdian.

He was involved in local politics in his home state of Rhode Island. In December 2019 he told media there that he had late-stage non-Hodgkin lymphoma and had weeks to live.

It was reported in local news media that he had died in February 2020.

However, less than two years later, Rossi - who was the subject of an Interpol wanted notice - turned up on a hospital ward in Glasgow during the pandemic.

He was arrested at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital on 13 December 2021 and his past was made public.

Rossi had been found guilty of sexual imposition and public indecency while a student at Sinclair College in Dayton, Ohio, in 2008.

He is wanted for questioning in Utah over an alleged rape in the state in September of that year.

Rossi is alleged to have attacked a former girlfriend, pushing her on to a couch and forcing her to have sex while ignoring her pleas to stop.

He is also under investigation in the UK.

Rossi was arrested and bailed in October in relation to an allegation of rape in Essex in 2017. The alleged incident was reported in April 2022.