According to the judge, Fiji will bear the costs of maintaining the ship pending the outcome of a legal dispute over the seizure.
The 106-meter ship Amadea arrived in Fiji on April 13, after an 18-day voyage from Mexico. It was seized by Fiji authorities after the country’s Supreme Court complied with a US arrest warrant that linked the yacht to sanctioned Russian billionaire Suleiman Kerimov.
Kerimov is seen as an important confidant of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Because of the war in Ukraine, the US, the UK and the European Union have imposed heavy sanctions on Russian oligarchs.
superyacht
The superyacht is valued at about $300 million (about $280 million) and the US has pledged to maintain the ship after it was seized. Those costs are about 25 million to 30 million dollars per year. However, the Fiji government has so far been charged with the costs, according to the judge, while the registered owner of the vessel, Millemarin Investments, has appealed the seizure.
The judge stated in the verdict that the public interest demands that the yacht “sail out of Fiji waters” because docking in Fiji “has cost the government dearly.” According to the judge, the ship entered Fiji waters without any license and most likely to avoid prosecution by the US.
Christopher Pryde, Fiji’s director of public prosecutions, said in a statement that the Amadea has been handed over to US authorities and will now leave the island.
The US claims that Kerimov owns the Amadea. However, the ship’s lawyers say it is owned by another Russian oligarch, Eduard Khudaynatov, the former top executive of the Russian state oil group Rosneft, who is not on the sanctions list.
In May, the superyacht Scheherazade, with a value of more than 650 million euros, was seized in Italy. That ship is said to belong to Khudynatov, but is most likely owned by Putin.