Armed guards aboard the luxury yacht opened fire on the Yemeni coast guard while they were in the Gulf of Aden off the southern parts of the country on Friday. The guards allegedly mistook the Coast Guard for pirates. The Coast Guard returned fire on the yacht and chased it for about an hour.
Late Friday, a security company confirmed that a Coast Guard employee had been shot dead.
Security company UKMTO, which monitors ship traffic, writes on its website that three boats with three or four people on board launched an “attack” before realizing they were from the Yemeni coast guard. Yemeni authorities confirmed the incident.
Kind Yacht
The luxury yacht was previously owned by the late Hollywood star Richard Burton, known among other things for his participation in the movie Cleopatra, where he also met his wife, Elizabeth Taylor.
Burton purchased the yacht in 1967 for $220,000, roughly $2 million in today’s money. Burton reportedly gave Taylor a special ring on the boat, with a pear-shaped diamond, now known as the “Taylor Burton Diamond”.
Today, the luxury yacht is owned by an Indian investor named Shirish Saraf, according to a profile in Boat magazine. However, the exchange did not comment on the events.
Oil tankers have been seized
Similar incidents occurred with boats that had previously been fired upon in the Gulf of Aden. This is the second violent incident in a short time in the region around the Arabian Peninsula. There were reports, on Thursday, that Iran had seized a Marshall Islands oil tanker that was on its way to the United States.
According to the United States, the ship was in international waters, in the Gulf of Oman off Iran, when it was seized by Iranian forces and diverted to the Iranian coast. The United States came out and demanded that Iran release the ship immediately.
For its part, Iran claimed that the oil tanker was seized after it collided with an Iranian ship, and that two people from its crew were missing and several others were injured.
Actor Richard Burton with his wife, Elizabeth Taylor. The photo is undated. Photo: AP/TT
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