schema:articleBody
| - The wife of a Palestinian man convicted in an attack on an airliner cannot collect on her late husband's life insurance because he omitted his criminal record when he took out the policy, a Canadian court ruled Thursday. "It is a principle of long standing that an applicant for insurance has an obligation to reveal to the insurer any information that is material to the application," the Ontario Court of Appeal said in overturing a lower court ruling. "The deceased knew that his past activities were relevant," it concluded. Mahmoud Mohammad Issa Mohammad, a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, had been convicted in Greece for killing one person and destroying an El Al jetliner in a grenades and gunfire attack at the Athens airport in 1968. He was released in a hostage negotiation and, under an alias, moved to Canada in 1987. Canada, which has banned the PFLP as a terrorist group, eventually extradited him to Lebanon, where he died of cancer in 2015. His wife Fadia Khalil Mohammad as sole beneficiary sought to collect on his Can$75,000 (US$57,000) policy. But the Manufacturers Life Insurance Company said his failure to disclose his violent past and membership in a "terrorist entity" voided the policy. "The past actions of the deceased were material to the risk that he posed for the purpose of having his life insured," the appeals court said. The court noted that shortly after applying for the life insurance, Mohammad argued against deportation from Canada, saying his life would be in danger if he were sent to Israel. amc/dw
|