(JTA) — A disgraced anti-Israel activist from Britain who was jailed for staging a rowdy and racist scene aboard an airplane was found dead in what police are treating as a suicide.
The lifeless body of Simone Burns, 50, also known as Simone O’Broin, was found last month on a beach, the Daily Telegraph reported Thursday. Sussex Police confirmed her death “is not being treated as suspicious” and next of kin have been informed, the report said.
Burns was not known to have life-threatening medical issues.
Last year, she was filmed threatening to boycott Air India unless she was served more wine on the business class flight from Mumbai to London.
She was filmed spitting in the face of one steward and shouting that she was “an international criminal lawyer for the f***ing Palestinian people” in an inebriated rant.
A friend of Burns told the Telegraph that her “world fell apart” following the conviction.
O’Broin co-authored a research paper with former U.N. Special Rapporteur Richard Falk on the human rights situation in the Palestinian territories.
During her four-minute rant, which was filmed and uploaded to social networks where it went viral, she called a female crew member “Indian f***ing money grabbing bastard,” shouting that she will “turn you inside f***ing out, you f***ing stupid c***s.”
O’Broin, who worked as a head researcher for the anti-Israel Badil organization as late as 2011, said that she is a “leader of the f***ing boycott movement,” adding: “If I say boycott f***ing Air India, done.”