Malaysia plans to take Sulu sultan’s heirs to court over Sabah seizure claims
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Over 100 militants sent by self-styled Sulu Sultan Jamalul Kiram III stormed parts of Sabah in 2013 to press his claims to the island.
PHOTO: THE STAR/ASIA NEWS NETWORK
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KUALA LUMPUR – Malaysia intends to bring the self-styled descendants of the sultanate of Sulu before a court after a territorial dispute between the two parties led to bailiffs appearing at the country’s embassy and its employees’ homes in Paris on Monday.
The bailiffs tried to obtain a description of the properties and were turned away, according to Malaysia’s special Sulu secretariat.
They appeared to have acted on instruction from the Sulu claimants, on the basis of a statutory mortgage registered on the premises following a Paris court order, said the secretariat.
“Moving forward, it is Malaysia’s intention to summon the Sulu claimants to appear before the court which granted the authorisation order to obtain the cancellation of the registration of the mortgage,” the secretariat said in a statement on Wednesday.
“The statutory mortgage is not an enforcement measure per se.”
Malaysia was responding to a Reuters report on Tuesday that French bailiffs had tried to enforce a court-issued seizure order on three of the Malaysian government’s properties in Paris.
There was no attempt to seize the properties and the premises of any diplomatic mission shall be inviolable and immune under the Vienna convention, Malaysia said in the statement.
The incident was linked to the Sulu heirs’ decades-long claims to the Borneo state of Sabah.
A French judge in December granted their request to seize the properties to settle a debt of €2.3 million (S$3.3 million) they said were owed to them, according to Reuters.
This was after a French arbitration court in Paris in 2022 ordered the Malaysia government to pay RM62.59 billion (S$18.7 billion) to the Sulu descendants over their territorial claim.
The Malaysian government filed an application to cancel the award in Paris, while a district court in Luxembourg set aside the legal action payment, Malaysia said in January.
“Malaysia maintains that it does not recognise the purported commercial arbitration instituted by the Sulu claimants and will continue to vigorously defend its sovereignty through the appropriate legal forums,” said Malaysia’s secretariat.
The Sulu heirs also laid claim to state-owned oil company Petroliam Nasional’s (Petronas) units in Luxembourg as part of their efforts to enforce the arbitration award.
Petronas in February confirmed the seizure orders and said it would defend its legal position.
The Sulu sultanate leased Sabah state to a British company in 1878.
The state was later absorbed into Malaysia. BLOOMBERG
