The real motives behind the Lahad Datu intrusion

Soldiers firing 81mm mortars at an enemy position during a battle in Lahad Datu on March 8, 2013.

IT was billed as a “Sabah Homecoming”. However, it ended in a military intrusion that reshaped Malaysia’s border defence system, and set off a chain reaction of legal fallout, including the US$14.9bil (RM60.9bil) Sulu arbitration.

After travelling deep into the southern Philippines to investigate the Sulu Sultanate family behind the 2013 intrusion into Lahad Datu, Sabah, I sat down this week in Kuala Lumpur with a Malaysian security contact to uncover what really happened on our side of the border, and the hidden motives that drove those fateful events.