Dubai ruler’s wife flees to Europe, seeks asylum in the UK
Wife of Dubai ruler reportedly flees the UAE and is living secretly in England while seeking asylum.
The wife of Dubai’s ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum has reportedly fled the United Arab Emirates and is seeking asylum in the UK.
Princess Haya bint Al Hussein, 45, the daughter of the late King of Jordan and the sister of the current king escaped the UAE with her two children late last month, according to reports from within the country and abroad. She is said to have sought and been granted asylum in Germany, but is living in a secret location in England while awaiting asylum there.
The website Emirates Leaks reported a German diplomat had helped the princess leave with her son Zayed, 7 and daughter Jalila, 11, potentially risking a diplomatic row between Germany and the UAE.
Both Mohammed bin Rashid and Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed asked Germany to return the trio but Berlin refused the request, Emirates Leaks reports.
Radha Stirling, CEO of the support group Detained in Dubai, confirmed that she had received multiple reports from sources close to the governments in Jordan and UAE indicating Princess Haya was seeking asylum in Germany.
“Whenever someone applies for political asylum, obviously, it is because their lives are in danger, and because they have suffered severe abuses and violations of their human rights,” Ms Stirling said in a statement.
Radha Stirling (CEO of Detained In Dubai) addresses reports that Dubai Ruler’s wife, HH Sheikha Haya, seeking asylum https://t.co/tCueAh7WXM pic.twitter.com/1RBINV6c4V
— Detained in Dubai (@detainedindubai) June 28, 2019
Princess Haya’s escape comes just after a year after Sheikh Mohammed’s daughter Princess Latifa tried to escape Dubai, claiming she had suffered unspeakable abuse for years at the hands of her father. Princess Latifa, 33, enjoyed five days of freedom before commandos stormed a yacht on which she was fleeing to India and seized her. In a video she posted online before she was recaptured, Princess Latifa said she had been secretly imprisoned for three years after a previous escape attempt as a teenager.
Since her recapture Latifa has been seen only once, in a posed photograph alongside Princess Haya and former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson who visited the Al Maktoum family residence in December 2018. The photograph was widely denounced as a PR stunt.
In her statement on Princess Haya, Ms Stirling said her escape “raises serious questions as to what prompted her to flee, and why she felt unable to simply file for divorce and relocate herself and her children without fear of reprisal from the Ruler of Dubai. She is, after all, a free adult woman, and the sister of the King of Jordan; yet apparently, she feels unsafe … Haya undoubtedly has witnessed, or experienced firsthand, the types of mistreatment alleged by Latifa, and decided to get out”.
Sheikh Mohammed, one of the world’s richest men, published a poem on Instagram at the weekend apparently denouncing his wife — the most junior of at least five.
“You betrayer, you betrayed the most precious trust, and your game has been revealed.
“Your days of lying are over and it doesn’t matter what we were and what you are … You no longer have any place with me,” the 69-year-old prince wrote. “I don’t care if you live or die.”
The Daily Beast website reports that rumours of a rift in the marriage first circulated earlier in June when Princess Haya did not accompany her husband to Royal Ascot. It also emerged that the Sheikh and Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed, ruler of Abu Dhabi and president of the UAE made an unscheduled visit to Germany before Ascot which was seen as an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to negotiate Princess Haya’s return.
According to The Beast, Sheikh Mohammed is likely to allow a civil divorce from Princess Haya rather than risk harming relations with the Jordanian royal family.
The medieval treatment of young women in the Arab world has been highlighted in recent months by the cases of Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun, 18, who feared her family would find her and kill her before she was granted asylum in Canada earlier this year; and of sisters Reem and Rawan, who were stranded in Hong Kong for six months before reaching safety.
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