Laporan dari the malaymailonline melaporkan Sultan Jamalul Kiram III Meninggal Dunia akibat kegagalan buah pinggang pukul 4 pagi tadi
KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 20 — Self-proclaimed “Sultan” of Sulu Jamalul Kiram III, who sent an invasion force to lay claim to Sabah and triggered a bloody armed confrontation in Lahad Datu in March, passed away early this morning, according to his daughter. Jacel Kiram-Hassan revealed in a radio interview with Quezon City-based DZBB Radio that her father succumbed to long-suffered kidney problems. “My Appah, Sultan Jamalul Kiram III, has returned to our Creator at around 4 in the morning October 20, 2013. Thank you for your prayers and support,” Jacel said in a Facebook post this morning, referring to her father.
“He passed away (at) 4am due to organ failure,” Jacel had said earlier in a radio interview, as reported by Filipino online news site GMA News. It was also reported that Kiram had been confined in the Philippine Heart Center since Thursday. Kiram died aged 75, and Jacel told Makati City-based DZIQ Radio channel that his remains will be brought to Jolo, Sulu for burial. He also left behind nine children including Jacel ― three with his widow Fatima Celia Kiram, and six from a former marriage with Carolyn Tulawie. “Whatever my father started, he left for us to continue…We should not falter. He’s a great man, a good man. He was priceless.
All he wanted was, in his right time, be allowed by Allah to reclaim Sabah for the Filipinos…We’ll be the ones to continue that,” Jacel told DZIQ, as reported by Filipino online news site Inquirer.net. According to the self-styled sultanate’s spokesman Abraham Idjirani, as one of his last decrees Kiram had told his followers to continue their Sabah “repossessing” efforts for the sake of the Filipino people. In March, around 200 of Kiram’s followers occupied Kampung Tanduo in Lahad Datu, and entered into gunfights with Malaysia’s security forces in a standoff which lasted weeks.
The Sulu gunmen were led by Agbimuddin Kiram, Kiram’s brother and heir apparent. Over the course of the standoff, 68 people were reported dead, including nine from Malaysia’s security forces, and six civilians. The self-proclaimed Sultanate of Sulu had laid claim to Sabah, saying it had merely leased North Borneo in 1878 to the British North Borneo Company for an annual payment of 5,000 Malayan dollars then, which was increased to 5,300 Malayan dollars in 1903. Sabah, however, joined Malaya, Sarawak and Singapore to form Malaysia in 1963, after which Malaysia continued paying an annual stipend of RM5,300 to the Sulu sultanate on the basis of the sultanate ceding the Borneo state.
The last sultan of Sulu officially recognised by the Philippine government was Mahakuttah Kiram, who died in 1986. His eldest son, Muedzul-Lail Tan Kiram, was crowned sultan September last year, and is one of the many claimants to the throne. Jamalul Kiram III was the “interim sultan” between 1974 and 1981, and was elected “de facto sultan” at a meeting of the Kiram clan last November.
He had also ran as a Philippine senator in 2007 under the TEAM Unity banner of then president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, but lost despite garnering close to two million votes. According to South China Morning Post, Kiram had also briefly worked as a radio announcer, and toured with Bayanihan, an acclaimed national folk dance company.
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