US rape suspect Nicholas Rossi has been extradited from Scotland to America after a long-running legal battle.

A Police Scotland spokeswoman said: “We assisted partner agencies with the extradition of a 36-year-old man”.

It comes after appeal judges recently quashed Rossi’s appeal against the extradition.

The order followed a protracted extradition battle in which Rossi was ruled to be a man wanted by authorities in Utah for the alleged rape of a woman in 2008.

US law enforcement claim he is a fugitive who faked his own death – even setting up his own memorial service – and fled to the UK.

He repeatedly argued he was a victim of mistaken identity and was instead an Irish orphan named Arthur Knight who had never even been to America.

However, it emerged he had changed his name four times in three years and concocted a number of stories to hide from justice, said Sky’s Scotland correspondent Connor Gillies.

Rossi first came to the attention of authorities after he became ill with COVID and was taken to Glasgow’s Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in December 2021.

In November 2022, Edinburgh Sheriff Court ruled his tattoos and fingerprints matched those of Rossi – as featured on a global Interpol notice.

Rossi suggested they had been inked on him by a rogue NHS employee when he was unconscious in hospital.

The case played out over a number of years in Scottish courts, with Rossi dismissing his legal teams and representing himself.

Gillies said today’s extradition brings “an end a huge game of cat and mouse he played with the legal system”.

“The time is up, the game is up,” said Sky’s correspondent.

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