KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 14 ― Agbimuddin Kiram, the man who led 200 Sulu gunmen during the bloody incursion in Lahad Datu, Sabah early 2013, died of a cardiac arrest yesterday, reports said.

Philippines-based news website Rappler confirmed that Agbimuddin died in his hometown of Tawi-Tawi yesterday, citing “three sources”.

Agbimuddin led 200 armed followers of the Sulu Sultanate in southern Philippines into Lahad Datu in February 2013 to stake their claim over Sabah, which the Kiram clan insisted belongs to their people.

According to Agbimuddin’s late brother, the self-proclaimed Sulu “Sultan” Jamalul Kiram III, the Sulu Sultanate 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.

In the bloody standoff that ensued with Malaysia’s security forces, a total of 68 terrorists were reportedly shot dead while 10 local policemen were killed.

A total of 173 arrests were made.

The self-styled Sulu Sultan died in October 2013.