A man accused of faking his own death and fleeing to Scotland to avoid rape charges in the United States is now standing trial.

Nicholas Alahverdian, who is better known as Nicholas Rossi, has pleaded not guilty to charges of sexually assaulting two women in Utah in 2008.

The 38-year-old will stand trial for two cases separately, with the first now underway in Salt Lake City.

Rossi was arrested in Scotland in 2021 - a year after he was reported dead.

An obituary published online in February 2020 claimed he died of late-stage non-Hodgkin lymphoma but state police, along with Rossi’s former lawyer and a former foster family, doubted his death.

Then staff at a Glasgow hospital recognised his tattoos from an Interpol notice while he was receiving treatment for covid-19 and alerted authori

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