Sulu sultanate descendants deny ties with Shafie Apdal
Published on: Sunday, September 15, 2024
By:
FMT, Sean Augustin
In June, Shafie Apdal challenged law and institutional reform minister Azalina Othman Said to name the ‘instigators and traitors’ she said were assisting the Sulu heirs, but she declined.
PETALING JAYA: The descendants of the Sulu sultanate have denied any relationship with former Sabah chief minister Shafie Apdal, refuting a recent report by a news portal.
"(We) have no relationship with Shafie or any associate of his,"the Sulu heirs said through their lawyer Paul H Cohen in a statement to FMT.
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Sabahkini2 had in the report claimed that Shafie and his party, Warisan, were "friendly" with the descendants of the Sulu sultanate.
On Wednesday, Warisan denied the claim, with the party’s youth chief, Terence Au, lodging a police report over the allegation. Au said Shafie had previously questioned the Sulu descendants’ claim for almost US$15 billion in damages from the federal government.
Cohen also took a swipe at law and institutional reform minister Azalina Othman Said, saying his clients were often amused by her "constant claims of victory with bizarre, conspiratorial statements" about them.
Azalina announced last week that the Supreme Court of the Netherlands has dismissed the suit, describing the outcome as a "final landmark victory" in the case.
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Earlier, in June, Azalina had claimed that "instigators and traitors" within the country had supported and assisted the descendants of the Sulu sultanate, an allegation which Cohen described as false.
He asked why Azalina had refused to identify these alleged local collaborators.
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"Shafie had the temerity to ask this question when she spoke in the chambers," Cohen said, referring to a supplementary question Shafie had posed in the Dewan Rakyat nearly three months ago.
Shafie, the Semporna MP, had insisted that Azalina name the instigators and traitors she was referring to. She refused, saying they would abscond if their identities were revealed.
"Might this be why he has been targeted?"Cohen said, referring to claims of Shafie’s alleged ties to the Sulu descendants.
The damages sought by Cohen’s clients stem from a long-running dispute with Malaysia over annual payments to the Sulu heirs as compensation for the cession of Sabah to the North Borneo Company in 1878.
Malaysia stopped the payments after Sulu claimants led an armed incursion in 2013 in pursuit of a claim of sovereignty over Sabah.
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