Thursday 28 Mar 2024
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This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on December 19, 2018

KUALA LUMPUR: The expected sale of luxury super yacht Equanimity at half of its original price is a failure that is to be blamed on the Malaysian government, claims fugitive financier Low Taek Jho (Jho Low).

“The predictable failure of the [Tun Dr] Mahathir [Mohamad] government to hold a successful auction of the yacht Equanimity is another example of a Mahathir regime prioritising illegal acts over the rule of law in a transparent effort to score political points,” an unnamed spokesman of Jho Low said in a statement issued through Jho Low’s attorneys.

“This was a failed public relations (PR) stunt from the outset. By illegally seizing the yacht from Indonesia, where the US government had been willing to cover the substantial cost of the vessel’s upkeep, docking it in a hazardous environment at Port Klang, and then subjecting the vessel to poorly controlled media and public access, the Malaysian government was responsible for substantially eroding the Equanimity’s value,” the spokesman said.

Equanimity, which was allegedly bought by Jho Low using money stolen from scandal-tainted 1Malaysia Development Bhd and which now belongs to the Malaysian government, is expected to be sold for no less than US$130 million (RM543 million).

In the statement, the spokesman claims that by removing Equanimity from Indonesia, Putrajaya had ignored court rulings in Indonesia as well as established legal proceedings in the US before subsequently announcing that it had established a so-called “right to sell” the vessel.

“With so much doubt hanging over its ownership, no sensible, independent third-party buyer is going to purchase a vessel from an unreliable vendor like the Mahathir regime at anything other than a hugely-depressed value.

“Indeed, what now amounts to the doomed fire sale of the Equanimity is an admission that this political PR stunt by the Mahathir regime has failed, and that these acts by the Malaysian government have been nothing more than political gamesmanship at the cost of the rule of law and the fair administration of justice,” the spokesman added.

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