The family of a Jewish couple who were gunned down in Israel by Hamas in 1996 were dealt a setback Tuesday when the Appellate Division, First Department, reversed a judgment that would have allowed them to collect more than $9 million on a $116 million default judgment entered in 2003 by a federal judge in Rhode Island. In a unanimous, unsigned opinion, the panel ruled that the trial judge, Supreme Court Justice Shirley Werner Kornreich in Manhattan (See Profile), had misinterpreted a ruling it had issued a year ago in which it reinstated claims brought by the family of the victims, Yaron and Efrat Ungar, to $30 million that had been frozen at the Bank of New York.
The frozen funds are in the name of the Palestine Monetary Authority (PMA), which, the family contended, is indistinguishable from the Palestinian Authority (PA), which sponsored the Hamas attack. The PMA contends it is a separate and independent entity and that none of the funds belong to the PA. At issue in the latest appeal are $9 million in profits and interest resulting from the operations of the PMA in 2005. The family contended that Palestinian law requires the PMA to turn the profits over to the PA, but to avoid surrendering the money to the Ungar family the PA waived its rights to the profits.
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