Ex-AG insists Malaysia must honour 1878 deal to pay Sulu sultanate

 

Former attorney-general Tommy Thomas has defended his position that the annual payment to the Sulu sultanate must be honoured.

"That hasn't changed because, in my opinion, Malaysia has always had a legal obligation since 1963, so we should have paid (the purported heirs of the Sulu sultanate)," he said while attending an event in Kuala Lumpur.

Thomas held this position in 2019 when he corresponded with lawyers for purported descendants of the Sulu sultanate who initiated and won an arbitration proceeding against Malaysia.

Among others, Thomas offered to pay RM48,230 for arrears between 2013 and 2019. The arrears arose from a colonial-era cessation of payments to the Sulu sultanate for the territory now known as Sabah.

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Najib Abdul Razak, who stopped the annual payment of RM5,300 in 2013 when he was prime minister, had accused Thomas of being chiefly responsible for the claimants’ successful arbitration proceedings.

Following this, Sabah MCA has lodged a police report against Thomas over the letters.

‘Appoint top-class barrister’

Meanwhile, Thomas said Putrajaya should act immediately to prevent Paul Cohen, the UK-based co-lead counsel for Sulu sultanate heirs, from continuing his arbitration proceeding in other jurisdictions.

"In order to prevent any foreign shopping, I suggest that we appoint a top-class barrister to apply for contempt order from the court of England what we called an in personam order (against Cohen)."

"If the England court is satisfied with the argument put forward by Malaysia, then the court can order Cohen not to file any more proceedings in other countries. And if he does, he will be liable for contempt in the England court," he said.

Former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak

Putrajaya may also lodge a complaint against Cohen with the disciplinary board in England which regulate the barristers for bringing the bar into a dispute, said Thomas.

"Similar action can be taken in Spain and hopefully the courts of Spain are pretty angry with him (Cohen) because he had disobeyed the courts' order by moving (the arbitration) to France," he said.

Thomas said the arbitration court in France and authority in Luxembourg have no basis to allow any hearing for the claimants and arbitrators.

"They started off without an arbitration clause but there is no such thing in the 1878 agreement (inked between Sulu sultanate and British North Borneo)," he said.

"These courts should have dismissed the ex-parte application at the onset of the 1878 agreement cannot be interpreted in any other way," he said.

The arbitration award secured by the claimant amounted to US$14.92 billion (RM66.38 billion). Following this, the Sulu side, via their lawyers, managed to seize two Luxembourg-incorporated subsidiaries of Petronas reportedly worth US$2 billion (RM8.9 billion). - Mkini