KUALA LUMPUR/SINGAPORE — Civil society organizations are urging Malaysian billionaire Syed Mokhtar Al-Bukhary to undo his appointment of Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem as executive chairman of MMC Port Holdings, a major logistics company, pointing to Bin Sulayem’s alleged connections to the late Jeffrey Epstein.
Reuters exclusively reported last week that Bin Sulayem, an Emirati national, was poised to take the helm of Malaysia’s largest port operator — just five months after he resigned from Dubai’s DP World amid questions about his email communications with Epstein, a convicted sex offender who died in 2019.
MMC Port operates seven ports along the Malacca Strait, one of the world’s most heavily trafficked shipping corridors. The company is a subsidiary of MMC Corporation, in which Syed Mokhtar holds a controlling interest. Neither Syed Mokhtar nor the company has offered any public response to the Reuters reporting.
A joint statement signed by 31 organizations and dated July 20 formally called on Syed Mokhtar to reverse the appointment. The groups pointed to both financial and geopolitical concerns, noting that major institutions — including the United Kingdom’s development finance agency and Canada’s second-largest pension fund — had paused new investments with DP World in response to Bin Sulayem’s alleged Epstein connections.
“It is fair to say that Mr bin Sulayem has earned considerable notoriety from the disclosure of the Epstein files. If he was not deemed indispensable to DP World, there is hardly any reason why he should be considered indispensable to MMC Ports,” the statement read.
MMC Corporation did not respond to requests for comment. Bin Sulayem has made no public statement regarding his email exchanges with Epstein and was not reachable for comment.
The announcement of Bin Sulayem’s new role sparked a swift backlash on social media, with many users raising questions about his fitness for the position.
Malaysia’s transport minister responded to the controversy last week, saying the government has no authority to step into the internal management decisions of private companies. The minister noted that the government’s role is limited to regulating shareholding structures of firms that operate under concessions or are considered strategic national assets.
