A woman was arrested in Ulsan, South Korea, pursuant to two murder charges related to the bodies found in suitcases in Manurewa, Auckland. Photo / AP
It could take months or even years for a 42-year-old woman arrested in South Korea to face murder charges in New Zealand.
The woman, arrested in the South Korean city of Ulsan, stands to be extradited back to New Zealand to face charges related to the deaths of two young children.
New Zealand Herald writer Tom Dillane tells the Front Page podcast that the woman has since been moved to Seoul.
"The next step of the extradition process, which the New Zealand Police are trying to do through the Korean courts, will see the case undergo a review at the Seoul high courts on whether she should be extradited," says Dillane.
An official at the National Police Agency in South Korea has told media that an official date hadn't been set for the review but that it must take place within the next two months.
Dillane says this will provide some indication of how the extradition process is going, but the process itself could take far longer.
"Criminal barristers here said that she may defend the charges and it's unclear what resources she has to fight the extradition process."
As evidenced by the Kim Dotcom case, extradition cases are highly technical and can take years to progress through the court system.
"It can all depend on how much the defendant is willing to challenge the process and whether they have enough money to challenge the process," says Dillane.
"And even though New Zealand and South Korea have an extradition treaty, it doesn't mean that the process will necessarily be successful... It could be a dragged-out process, which could take years."
However, given that the arrest has happened relatively quickly, the process could also be expedited.
As the wait goes on for the courts to make a decision, Dillane says there are still many unanswered questions about how this happened.
One of the biggest areas of concern is how two primary-age students could simply disappear in New Zealand without anyone noticing for all this time.
"It's one of the things that's really puzzling about this case: why would people not notice that two children, believed to have been aged 7 and 10, were missing... It's very mysterious because presumably relatives in New Zealand also did not know that the children [were missing]."
Dillane says that details about the family have thus far been quite limited.
"The next significant step in this investigation will be about finding out information about the family and what their life was like in Auckland before and also what the woman has been doing in Korea since 2018."
Dillane says this will help to paint a clearer picture of how this tragedy unfolded in the first place.
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He is not an immediate risk to public safety but still should not be approached.