A federal court in the Southern District of New York denied the US government the right to sell the seized yacht Amadea, allegedly owned by sanctioned Russian senator Suleiman Kerimov, the Voice of America reported on Friday.
The court ruled that the costs of maintaining the yacht were not “excessive”. As noted by the radio station, the decision means that US taxpayers will continue to pay the cost of maintaining Amadea, which amounts to approximately 740 thousand dollars per month.
Earlier, agency Reuters reported that the US authorities spend about 7 million dollars a year on the maintenance of the confiscated yacht Amadea.
The authorities of the Republic of Fiji detained the yacht on April 14, 2022, after it entered the state's exclusive economic zone without proper authorization. According to preliminary data of the local police, the yacht belonged to Kerimov, and the US Department of Justice sent an order for its seizure, after which the vessel was arrested. The arrest was later disputed by Millemarin Investment, which said the yacht did not belong to Kerimov, but to former Rosneft chairman and general director Eduard Khudainatov. However, US authorities claim that Khudainatov, who was not under sanctions, was simply being used to hide the identity of the true owner of the ship.
Since May 6 of the same year in the Republic of Fiji, 10 hearings were held in courts of various instances, during which the authorities tried to determine the future fate of the yacht, allowing it to leave the country's territorial waters or its re-entry detention. The end of this case was not put until June 7, 2022, when the Supreme Court of Fiji allowed representatives of the US Department of Justice to take the ship. In October 2023, US authorities filed a civil suit to seize the yacht, a process that is still ongoing.