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AAP
National
Cheryl Goodenough and Jacob Shteyman

Woman accused of love triangle murder plot extradited

Jonathon Hawtin was rendered tetraplegic after being struck repeatedly in the neck with a hatchet. (David Mariuz/AAP PHOTOS)

A former academic accused of being at the centre of an alleged murder plot that left her ex-partner a tetraplegic and her lover with a gunshot wound will be extradited to South Australia.

Lisa Margaret Lines did not appear in a Brisbane court on Friday when a magistrate agreed to an unopposed extradition application.

The 43-year-old was represented by a duty lawyer who agreed the extradition was by consent, with Lines accepting she is the person on an arrest warrant.

The court heard Lines has no criminal history in Queensland.

The application was to transfer her to South Australia for a court appearance on Monday. 

Lines was taken into custody at Brisbane Airport by Queensland homicide detectives on Thursday on her arrival in Australia.

The historian - a respected expert on the Spanish Civil War - was arrested in the island nation of Palau earlier this month.

Documents before Brisbane Magistrates Court list her address as Xinidian District, New Taipei City, Taiwan, occupation as editor and place of birth as Woodville, South Australia.

The arrest relates to a convoluted series of events that began with a violent incident in the Adelaide Hills in October 2017.

Lines' former partner, Jonathon Hawtin, was rendered tetraplegic - paralysed from the neck down - after being struck repeatedly in the neck with a hatchet by her then-partner Zacharia Bruckner, who was shot in the abdomen.

Mr Hawtin, 36, was charged with attempted murder for shooting Bruckner, 30, with police assuming the younger man was acting in self-defence.

However, a jury of six men and six women unanimously acquitted Mr Hawtin in 2019 after three hours of deliberation. 

Lines had in June 2017 told Mr Hawtin that she wanted to separate, the jury was told.

She began a romantic relationship with Bruckner in August that year.

The court was also told Lines had a relationship with another woman and the pair discussed suffocating Mr Hawtin as he convalesced in hospital.

The other woman was spotted at his rehabilitation centre on New Year's Day 2018, the jury heard.

In 2020, major crime detectives in South Australia reopened the investigation, resulting in a warrant being issued for Lines' arrest.

Bruckner was arrested in Brisbane this month on conspiracy to murder offences and extradited to SA.

The pair are accused of attempting to murder Mr Hawtin in the October 2017 incident, as well as co-conspiring to murder Mr Hawtin and his mother Rhonda Hawtin between December 2021 and August last year.

Lines is also charged, along with the other woman, with attempting to murder Mr Hawtin on New Year's Day 2018.

Police have refused to rule out further arrests and charges in relation to the matter.

1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732)

Lifeline 13 11 14

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