A Rhode Island man who cops claim is a fugitive who faked his own death to flee the US has angrily insisted he’s a British man in a TV interview.
Nicholas Alahverdian - also known as Nicholas Rossi - is wanted by police in the US over allegations of rape and sexual assault and is currently awaiting extradition. You can see his bizarre interview here:
The Dateline interview was filmed in April last year, several months before a Scottish judge ruled he was Alahverdian and sees the fugitive become irate as he tries to claim he is a British man called Arthur Knight.
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In the clip, Alahverdian was sat next to his wife, Miranda Knight - a British national - and told Dateline: “We were once a normal family, but thanks to the media our lives have been interrupted.”
Speaking in a rather confusing accent, he continued: “And we'd like privacy and I would like to go back to being a normal husband, but I can't because I can't breathe, I can't walk.”
He then appeared to try and stand up before falling back down into his chair. When asked by the interviewer if he was putting on a show, he hit back: “That is a low blow, that is a very low blow.”
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Authorities claim that in 2019, Alahverdian told US media that he had late-stage non-Hodgkin lymphoma and only had weeks to live.
In February the following year an online obituary appeared and some news outlets ran with reports of his ‘death’.
Alahverdian was first arrested in October 2021 after he was checked into a hospital in Glasgow with a Covid-19 infection.
He was identified by medical staff and police due to his tattoos, with images of his ink being published on an Interpol red notice.
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Alahverdian made several appearances in court in the months that followed, and insisted that he was not the wanted one.
Bizarrely, he told the court his fingerprints had been tampered with and even claimed that he had been tattooed by staff at the hospital while unconscious so that they could claim he was Alahverdian.
Advocate depute Paul Harvey said at the time: “As a result of the extradition process I’m told that two other women in Utah have come forward with allegations of sexual offences.
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“On Friday, October 28 the US Embassy in London issued a diplomatic notice for supplementary extradition requests, requesting the extradition of the person.
“This morning Scottish ministers certified the extradition requests and copies of both extradition requests and the Scottish ministers' certification were served on the requested person by a police constable at the court this morning.”
Claire Reid