Malaysia basing new Batu Puteh challenge on declassified UK papers

(MMO) – Three documents recently declassified by the UK are the foundation of Malaysia’s bid to review the 2008 International Court of Justice decision that granted Singapore ownership of Pulau Batu Puteh.

According to Singaporean news outlet The Straits Times, the documents were released to the public by the UK between August last year and January.

They include private letters of Singapore’s colonial authorities from 1958, a British Navy incident report from the same year, and an annotated map of naval operations from the 1960s.

“Malaysia claims that these documents establish the new fact that ‘officials at the highest levels in the British colonial and Singaporean administration appreciated that Pedra Branca/Pulau Batu Puteh did not form part of Singapore’s sovereign territory’ during the relevant period,” the ICJ said in a statement.

“Malaysia argues that ‘that the Court would have been bound to reach a different conclusion on the question of sovereignty over Pedra Branca/Pulau Batu Puteh had it been aware of this new evidence’.”

Attorney-General Tan Sri Mohamed Apandi Ali said Malaysia filed the application at the ICJ, The Hague, on Thursday in the case between Malaysia and Singapore concerning the sovereignty of Pulau Batu Puteh, or Pedra Branca as it is now known, the Middle Rocks, and South Ledge.

The row over the ownership of Pulau Batu Puteh traces back to 1980, when Malaysia published a map indicating the island to be within the country’s territorial waters.

This led to a nearly three-decade dispute with Singapore that finally ended when the island was ruled to be Singaporean territory by the ICJ in 2008.

The ICJ had found that Singapore investigated shipwrecks within Pulau Batu Puteh’s territorial waters and granted or did not grant permission to Malaysian officials to survey the waters surrounding the island.

It further noted that Malaysia did not react to the flying of the Singapore ensign on the island and Singapore’s installation of military equipment on the island.

The ICJ had also judged that sovereignty over the Middle Rocks belonged to Malaysia and refrained from awarding South Ledge to either Malaysia or Singapore.