Wife Is Said to Admit Canadian’s Slaying

The wife of a Canadian man and five of her accomplices have confessed to killing him in Kuwait last month in a plot to collect his insurance money, the Interior Ministry said Tuesday.

The suspects, all Filipinos, have been referred to prosecutors, the ministry said in a statement. They planned the Oct. 10 shooting of aircraft technician Luc Ethier to “get part of the victim’s insurance policy,” it said.

A seventh suspect, also Filipino, had fled to neighboring Saudi Arabia and was expected to be extradited, according to the ministry.

The wife, Mary Jane Vitos, was injured in the shooting and remains hospitalized. She and Ethier were married in February. Police have not disclosed Ethier’s hometown.

Murder carries a maximum penalty in Kuwait of death by hanging.

Earlier Tuesday, the interior minister, Sheik Mohammed Khaled al Hamad al Sabah, told parliament that Vitos had confessed.

Vitos, 26, initially had identified a Kuwaiti man as the assailant. He denied the charge, and his lawyer said he had an alibi.

The ministry said the suspects tried to make use of the “delicate situation in the area and the world to cover their heinous crime.” It did not elaborate.

There initially had been suspicions that Ethier’s killing was related to the U.S. military operation in Afghanistan and retaliatory threats against Westerners living in this oil-rich Persian Gulf state.

Tensions are high in the Middle East following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States and the U.S.-led strikes in Afghanistan, whose Taliban regime harbors prime terror suspect Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda network. Western embassies in the region have asked their citizens to keep a low profile.