The Qatari sheikh who’s gifting a $400 million airplane that’s slated to grow to be President Trump’s subsequent Air Pressure One has beforehand confronted allegations of corruption and antisemitism — and is embroiled in a $20 million authorized dispute over a string of luxurious resorts, The Put up has discovered.
A Boeing 747-8 jet that has been dubbed a “flying palace” is owned by the Qatari royal household.
It nonetheless carries the initials of one among its main members — Qatar’s former prime minister, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim, also referred to as HBJ, in its tail quantity, aviation information present.
The 66-year-old royal — value an estimated $4 billion, in response to Forbes — has been branded the “Thief of Doha” by a Washington assume tank, and allegedly introduced senior members of Hamas to the Qatari capital.
He was accused by the DOJ of presiding over bribery and corruption when he led the bid to convey the 2022 World Cup to Qatar.
HBJ additionally drew controversy final 12 months over an antisemitic tirade in an interview with Kuwati media outlet Al-Qabas.
“Imagine oil was sold by some Jews … what would be the price of a barrel oil? It would be the most expensive thing in the world,” the previous Qatari PM was quoted as saying.
In the meantime, HBJ is going through a recent lawsuit from Irish property developer Paddy McKillen, who owns the Church of Oak whiskey distillery 40 miles southwest of Dublin with Irish rock legend Bono of U2.
The Belfast-born hotelier has accused the Gulf state’s monarchy in Los Angeles federal court docket of “a lawless plot” to tear him off after he masterminded the enlargement of a string of five-star resorts.
The grievance, filed late final month, focuses on a declare that three Qatari royals led by HBJ tricked McKillen and his agency Hume Avenue Administration Consultants (HSMC) into spending “significant resources” below “false pretenses” to improve 4 upmarket properties.
The civil swimsuit for $20 million in damages and curiosity is being introduced below the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, anti-Mafia laws drawn up in 1970 below President Richard Nixon.
As soon as a challenge had been accomplished, the lawsuit alleges, HBJ and his two family, Qatar’s former emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa, and the present emir’s sister, Sheikha Lulwah bint Hamad Al Thani, refused to pay up.
It stated the royal trio “systematically stonewalled Mr. McKillen and HSMC, refusing to compensate them for many millions of dollars in services in bad faith.”
The Put up has approached the Qatari authorities for remark.
Michael Gottlieb, a accomplice on the Willkie Farr & Gallagher legislation agency, who’s representing the hotelier, accused the Qatari royals of believing “they were above the law because of their wealth and power.”
“Mr. McKillen will not be cowed, and will pursue this suit until the defendants pay what his company rightfully earned,” he informed The Put up.
McKillen offered his majority stake within the Maybourne Resort Group in 2015 to an organization managed by the ex-PM, the lawsuit states, however he stayed on in a property improvement function with the agency.
The court docket paperwork declare that McKillen would proceed to obtain a “deferred payment” for “any net increase in the value of the Maybourne Hotel Group” over a interval ending in April 2022.
They allege that McKillen “continued to manage and redevelop the Maybourne hotels, at the direction of the Qatari Royals,” and even developed a completely new property, the Emory, an all-suite lodge near the British capital’s Hyde Park that options designs from artist Damien Hirst, in response to the identical supply.
His authorized staff alleges that the Qataris then “refused to compensate Mr. McKillen or HSMC for nearly all their efforts and absconded with their vision and hard work, essentially free of charge.”
The 2 sides fell out, the lawsuit alleges, when McKillen was “removed, without warning or reason, from Maybourne Hotels Limited’s board of directors on April 1, 2022.”
“These schemes to defraud their business partner and his company for, put crudely, free labor are part of a years-long pattern of illegal racketeering orchestrated by the Qatari Royals, and are in line with a history of illicit, lawless actions,” the lawsuit states.
McKillen alleges that he was drafted by the Qataris to overtake the Maybourne Riviera lodge in 2018 in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, France, near Monaco, and a five-story, $47 million Manhattan mansion owned by HBJ.
The previous Qatari prime minister purchased the 22,000-square-foot townhouse on East 71st Avenue in 2012 from the billionaire actual property tycoon Aby Rosen.
The next 12 months, his attorneys declare, they requested him to work on the redevelopment of the historic Parisian Îlot Saint-Germain constructing, which is ready to open as a Maybourne lodge in 2027, and the Maybourne Beverly Hills lodge in 2019.
McKillen additionally labored on two properties in London’s upmarket neighborhood of Mayfair: the Connaught and Claridge’s, the place penthouse suites can go for almost $80,000 an evening.
Claridge’s is a hotspot for the British elite as it’s the place the late Queen Elizabeth II hosted a marriage reception for Prince Charles and Princess Diana in 1981.
Work performed on these properties doesn’t function within the Los Angeles authorized grievance, however the millionaire investor has additionally filed claims within the UK and France.
