Sabah siege: 9 Pinoys to hang
A Malaysian court yesterday sentenced to death nine Filipinos involved in the 2013 Sabah standoff for waging a war against the Malaysian king. File
MANILA, Philippines - A Malaysian court yesterday sentenced to death nine Filipinos involved in the 2013 Sabah standoff for waging a war against the Malaysian king.
Among the nine is a son of the late Sultan of Sulu Jamalul Kiram.
A report of Malaysia’s national news agency Bernama said Court of Appeals Justice Datuk Setia Mohd Zawawi Salleh, who led a three-member panel, overturned the life sentence handed down earlier by the Kota Kinabalu High Court and imposed death for the convicted Filipinos.
The panel overturned the sentence following the prosecution’s appeal.
To be executed by hanging are Datu Amirbahar Hushin Kiram, 54, son of the late Sulu sultan; Julham Rashid, 70; Virgilio Nemar Patulada alias Mohamad Alam Patulada, 53; Salib Akhmad Emali, 64; Tani Lahad Dahi, 64; Basad Manuel, 42; Atik Hussin Abu Bakar, 46; Al-Wazir Osman, 62 and Ismail Yasin, 77.
The court said they were involved in armed incursion that left at least 70 dead and paralyzed Lahad Datu town in Sabah for several weeks.
On Feb. 11, 2013, followers of the late Sultan Jamalul Kiram III from Sulu arrived on a motorboat in Sabah and entered a town in Lahad Datu that surprised the Malaysian and Philippine governments, resulting in conflict with Malaysian security forces.
Malaysian troops and around 200 Filipinos were locked in a standoff in the isolated coastal village.
The men, led by the sultan’s brother Raja Muda Agbimuddin, pressed their ancestral claim to an area of northern Borneo that has been disputed by Malaysia and the Philippines since independence.
The Philippine and Malaysian governments urged some 200 Filipinos in Lahad Datu, a number of whom were armed, to return to their homes and families.
On March 1, 2013, Malaysia declared that the standoff between Kiram’s followers and Malaysian authorities in Sabah was over with the arrest of 10 supporters and wounding of four others in Kiram’s group.
Followers of Moro National Liberation Front chieftain Nur Misuari were suspected to have joined Kiram’s forces in Sabah.
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