KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 14 (Bernama) –The luxury superyacht ‘Equanimity’, believed to be owned by fugitive businessman Low Taek Jho or Jho Low will be sold\u00a0within three to four months,\u00a0 said\u00a0Attorney-General Tommy Thomas.<\/p>\n
He said the yacht worth RM1 billion, believed to be part of the assets purchased using\u00a0funds from 1Malaysia\u00a0Development Berhad (1MDB) , could be sold pending litigation\u00a0in a very transparent way\u00a0as they (1MDB) need to transform the ship into monies.<\/p>\n
“We \u00a0expect\u00a0the process (of selling the yacht)\u00a0 will be completed within three to four months pending nobody contesting \u00a0the ownership of the yacht in our courts.<\/p>\n
“The money that we get (from the selling) will be transferred into a fixed bank account which will be granted to any party who can successfully establish the ownership of the yacht in a civil suit,” he said at a special session during 2018 International Malaysia Law Conference here, today.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0super yach\u00a0arrived in Malaysia on Aug 7 after being\u00a0handed over by the Indonesian authorities.<\/p>\n
The Equanimity was seized off the coast of Bali by Indonesia in February at the request of US authorities as part of a multi-billion dollar corruption probe launched by the DoJ over 1MDB.<\/p>\n
However, an Indonesian court ruled in April that the seizure was illegal and that the yacht should be returned to its owners.<\/p>\n
But Indonesian authorities seized the yacht again in July following a formal request for legal assistance from the US. Indonesia then agreed it would hand over<\/a> the super yacht to Malaysia.<\/p>\n In a separate matter, Thomas said Jho Low should appoint a lawyer to set aside the warrant order by the Kuala Lumpur High Court against the seizure of the luxury super yacht.<\/p>\n “He should appoint a good shipping lawyer to set aside the order in our Court,” Thomas said.<\/p>\n He said this when asked about Jho Low\u2019s comment that Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad\u00a0\u00a0‘hijacked’ the legal proceedings of other countries in order to acquire the Equanimity.<\/p>\n Furthermore, Thomas also said that he had\u00a0no jurisdiction to interfere with the investigations of police or any other relevant authority\u00a0like the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission\u00a0 or Customs Department.<\/p>\n “Multiple agencies will investigate independently and we receive the IPs (investigation papers) after the investigations are completed. So far SRC papers came to us,” he said.<\/p>\n Former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib\u00a0Tun Razak is facing criminial breach of trust and abuse of power charges related\u00a0 to SRC International funds. SRC used to be a subsidiary of 1MDB\u00a0beforeit was taken over by the Ministry of Finance,<\/p>\n It was reported on Aug 7 that 1MDB \u00a0claimed ownership over Equanimity, which docked at the Boustead Cruise Centre in Klang, Selangor.<\/p>\n Other claimants are two of 1MDB subsidiaries and the government of Malaysia who believe their money was misappropriated in the purchase of the yacht.<\/p>\n It was also reported that the A-G\u2019s Chambers had invoked the Admiralty jurisdiction of the High Court in Kuala Lumpur against the yacht and on Aug 6, the court issued a warrant against it.<\/p>\n Commenting about political interference, Thomas said politicians are entitled to say anything.<\/p>\n “I do not mind. Principle of sub-judice does not exist. I support free speech,”he said.<\/p>\n Asked about civil servants who sabotage or leak information to those who had been in the previous government, Thomas said they will be prosecuted if there is sufficient evidence.<\/p>\n “Charges will be made against several individuasl,” he said.<\/p>\n —BERNAMA<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 14 (Bernama) –The luxury superyacht ‘Equanimity’, believed to be owned by fugitive…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[25,430,431],"class_list":["post-273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-scandal","tag-1mdb","tag-equanimity","tag-jho-low"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":"","thumbnail":"","medium":"","medium_large":"","large":"","1536x1536":"","2048x2048":"","newsium-slider-full":"","newsium-featured":"","newsium-medium":""},"author_info":{"info":["Editor"]},"category_info":"Scandal<\/a>","tag_info":"Scandal","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=273"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":307,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273\/revisions\/307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}