Putrajaya must respond to foreign court ordering it to pay RM63 bil to Sulu Sultanate

[superadmin]

Does Malaysia have to pay billions to Sulu heirs?

PETALING JAYA: News about the Malaysian government being instructed by a French arbitration court to pay at least RM62.59 billion (US$14.92 billion) to the descendants of the last Sulu sultan has created a buzz on social media.

The arbitrator, Gonzalo Stampa, ruled on Feb 28 that Malaysia 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.

The arbitration process originated in Spain, but has now moved to Paris.

FMT takes a closer look into the issue and its consequences.

What is the dispute about?
The dispute itself concerns the 1878 Deed of Cession between the then sultan of Sulu, Sultan Jamal al Alam, and Baron de Overbeck, the then Maharaja of Sabah, and British North Borneo Company’s Alfred Dent.

Under the agreement, Jamal ceded sovereignty over large parts of Sabah – from the northwest coast and extending beyond the east coast as far as the Sibuco River in the South – to Dent and Overbeck.

In exchange Dent, Overbeck and their future heirs were to pay the heirs of the sultan 5,000 Mexican dollars annually.

In 1936, the last formally recognised sultan of Sulu, Jamalul Kiram II, died without heirs and payments temporarily ceased until North Borneo High Court chief justice Charles F Macaskie named nine court-appointed heirs in 1939.

Payments to the heirs continued into modern times as Malaysia became the successor of the agreement following Sabah’s independence and the formation of the Federation of Malaysia in 1963.

But in 2013, after the Lahad Datu incursion, Malaysia stopped paying the Sultan of Sulu’s heirs their annual compensation, which is equivalent to RM5,300.

For the record, in Tommy Thomas’ book “My Story: Justice in the Wilderness”, he said there was no evidence linking the Sulu descendants who were receiving the annual fees from Malaysia to the armed invaders into Lahad Datu.

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