KUALA LUMPUR, April 16 — The Sulu incursion of Lahad Datu last year would have come to a swift and bloody end had former head of Sabah police Ramli Yusoff been at the reins.

In the early days of the invasion, authorities allowed the gunmen to take over a village in Sabah without aggression, at one point describing the invaders as malnourished old men in slippers.

But rather than attempting to coax the armed invaders loyal to the self-professed Sulu Sultan of the time, the late Jamalul Kiram, into surrender, Ramli said he would have gone in with guns blazing.

“I would straight away (have my men) kill them. No negotiations in matters of security — if it is confirmed they are armed intruders, we whack them,” he told news portal Malaysiakini in an interview published today.

The man who led the state’s police force from 2001 until 2004 also questioned the chain of command during the standoff that began in February last year and dragged on for over a month, which witnessed apparent confusion between the police and military over which was leading the operation.

Initially led by the Home Ministry, the operation was later taken over by the Armed Forces under Operation Daulat, after the occupation of Kampung Tanduo in Lahad Datu by as many as 235 armed intruders was classified as an intrusion of Malaysian borders.

“As far I am concerned, when it comes to internal security, the commissioner of police of Sabah is in charge of operations, as he looks after the security of the state.”

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.

Kiram died last October of multiple organ failure.