Govt lodges police report against Sulu claimants
Published on: Friday, May 26, 2023
By: FMT
Malaysia stopped paying the Sultan of Sulu’s heirs their annual compensation after the Lahad Datu incursion in 2013. (File photo: ATM via Reuters)
PETALING JAYA: The Prime Minister’s Department’s legal affairs division has lodged a police report against the self-proclaimed heirs of the late Sultan of Sulu.
The PMD’s special secretariat said the report was in view of their US$32 billion (RM148 billion) claims against Putrajaya through an arbitrator in July 2019, which it said was a threat to national security.
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In a statement, it added that the claimants’ “aggressive actions” could sabotage the economy.
“Following the report, it is believed that a criminal investigation will be initiated by the authorities to ensure the country’s peace, security and stability,” it said.
In February 2022, a French arbitration court instructed Putrajaya to pay US$14.92 billion (RM62.59 billion) to the self-proclaimed descendants of the last Sultan of Sulu.
Arbitrator Gonzalo Stampa ruled that Malaysia had violated the 1878 agreements between the old Sulu kingdom in the Philippines and a representative of the British North Borneo Company that used to administer what is now Sabah.
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However, Putrajaya maintained that the award by the court had no legal basis.
Malaysia then challenged the arbitration order in France and Spain. A French court granted a stay order on the award, pending a decision on Malaysia’s claim that the order infringed its sovereignty over Sabah.
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A Spanish court earlier this year annulled the appointment of the arbitrator who had granted the nearly US$15 billion award.
The dispute is over a deal signed in 1878 between two European colonists and the sultan for the use of his territory in present-day Malaysia – an agreement that independent Malaysia honoured until 2013, paying the monarch’s descendants about US$1,000 a year.
Malaysia stopped paying the annual compensation after the Lahad Datu, Sabah, incursion in 2013.
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