KUALA LUMPUR: The government is trying to establish if the so-called 'heirs' to the defunct Sulu Sultanate is affiliated with the Royal Sulu Forces (RSF) terror group.
Special Secretariat on Sulu Claims, in a statement, said checks are still being made to ascertain if any of the Sulu group's eight claimants have links, family ties or heirs to the RSF - the terrorist group involved in the 2013 intrusion of Lahad Datu, Sabah.
"RSF has been declared a terrorist group by the Malaysian government since April 2022," the secretariat said.
The secretariat said it is also scrutinising all existing measures to counter the Sulu group's claims, in a bid to preserve national sovereignty.
The secretariat said the legal actions filed by the Sulu group so far, especially through the commercial arbitration process, were inappropriate from the legal point of view and directly challenged Malaysia's sovereignty.
It also said that actions taken through commercial arbitration was considered malafide since Sulu approached the Borneo Utara High Court over a dispute in 1939.
"The Malaysian government insists that the claimant's rights and claims were invalid, void and terminated through the exercise of the right to self-determination by the people of Sabah through the consultation of the Cobbold Commission in 1962 and the formation of the Federation of Malaysia in 1963," it said.
It also said that the 1878 Agreement which was used as basis for arbitration exercise in Spain and France, did not have any arbitration clause and was not a commercial contract.
"The arising matter involves national sovereignty and Malaysia has never at any time waived its sovereign immunity, and the arbitrator has no authority to resolve the matter brought by the claimants
"This is in line with the order issued by the Sabah High Court on behalf of the Malaysian government on Jan 14, 2020.
"The Malaysian government will not compromise on aspects of national sovereignty and security," said the secretariat.
Malaysia has stopped paying the cession money of RM5,300 a year through lawyers representing the nine heirs of the Sulu Sultanate since 2013.
This resulted in the group to initiate arbitration claims and managed to seize us2-billion-seized-heirs-sulu-ruler">two Petronas assets in Azerbaijan in July 2022.
The government then formed the secretariat to tackle the Sulu Sultanate's claims.