Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum guilty of ‘intimidating and frightening’ wife

In a scandal that’s gripped the Middle East, a London court has found Sheikh Mohammed Al Maktoum kidnapped his daughters.

Dubai Princess Sheikha Latifa fled her homeland but was dramatically recaptured. Picture: YouTube

A judge has found Dubai’s ruler Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum abducted his two daughters and waged an intimidation campaign against his estranged wife.

The sensational ruling came about as a result of a custody dispute between the leader and his former wife, Princess Haya bint al-Hussein, who he married in 2004.

Their marriage broke down last April after Princess Haya left Dubai for London with the couple’s children, Jalila, 12, and Zayed, 8, claiming her husband had threatened and intimidated her.

London High Court judge Andrew McFarlane ruled in her favour, and also found the sheik had “ordered and orchestrated” the high-profile abductions of two of his adult daughters.

In 2018, then-32-year-old Sheikha Latifa bint Mohammed al-Maktoum made a daring escape from the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Princess Haya bint al-Hussein, pictured in 2016, left her husband last April. Picture: AP Photo/Martin Dokoupil

Princess Shamsa al Maktoum, Latifa's sister and Haya's step-daughter, has not been seen in years. Picture: Freelatifa.com

She had plotted her escape with a team of people sympathetic to her cause, including her martial arts instructor Tiina Jauhiainen and former French spy Hervé Jaubert, and in March that year drove across the border into Oman before boarding a boat headed for the Indian coast.

However, the boat never reached its destination.

Instead, it was stormed by commandos who captured the princess, who then disappeared from public view.

Shortly before her capture, the princess released an alarming video warning the world about her father.

A High Court judge has accepted as facts claims by Princess Haya Bint Al Hussein that Sheik Mohammed ‘ordered and orchestrated’ the abductions, forcing her to flee to London. Picture: Fayez Nureldine/AFP

“My father is the most evil person I have ever met in my life,” she said in the clip.

“He’s pure evil. There’s nothing good in him.

“If you are watching this, it’s not such a good thing. Either I’m dead or I’m in a very, very, very bad situation.”

She also claimed she had previously attempted to escape at age 16 in 2002 before being caught, imprisoned, tortured and drugged.

She said of her second escape attempt: “It was constant torture, constant torture, even when they weren’t physically beating me up, they were torturing me. They would switch off all the lights.

“I was in solitary confinement by myself totally, and there’s no windows, there’s no light, so when they switched off the light, it was pitch black.”

In the video she also claimed her older sister Shamsa was kept on medication to “control her mind” that had “made her like a zombie”.

The judge found the sheik ordered the abduction of his daughter Latifa. Picture: YouTube

Princess Latifa’s older sister Shamsa had also not been seen in public since she attempted to flee her family’s clutches in England in 2000.

Judge McFarlane found the sheik’s threats against his former wife continued after she left the Gulf emirate and that he used the apparatus of the state “to threaten, intimidate, mistreat and oppress with a total disregard for the rule of law”.

Last May, he launched legal action in a bid to have his young children returned to Dubai, while his ex-wife fought to have them remain in the UK.

But the judge found Princess Haya’s claims about the threats against her and the kidnapping of her husband’s daughters met the civil standard of proof on the balance of probabilities.

The judge also found he was behind the kidnapping of Princess Sheikha Shamsa al-Maktoum in 2001.

Judge McFarlane agreed that “on two occasions in June 2002 and February 2018, the father ordered and orchestrated the forcible return of his daughter Latifa, now 35, to the family home in Dubai”.

“In 2002 the return was from the border of Dubai with Oman, and in 2018 it was by an armed commando assault at sea near the coast of India,” he said.

Judge McFarlane also said elder daughter Shamsa, 38, had been abducted from Cambridge in the UK and “has been deprived of her liberty for much if not all of the past two decades”.

– With AP copy