Dubai Princess Said She is Held Hostage

In footage shared with BBC Panorama, Princess Latifa Al Maktoum, the daughter of the ruler of Dubai, says she is being detained against her will and that she fears for her life.

"I'm a hostage and this villa has been converted into a jail," she says in one video recorded with a secret phone she obtained after her recapture.

Princess Latifa, who tried to flee her home in 2018, later sent secret video messages to friends. The secret videos suddenly stopped coming and friends are urging the United Nations to step in.

Dubai and the UAE have previously said she is safe in the care of her family.

Ex-UN rights envoy Mary Robinson, who had described Latifa as a "troubled young woman" after meeting her in 2018, now says she was "horribly tricked" by Dubai’s ruling family.

The former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and president of Ireland has joined calls for international action to establish Latifa's current condition and whereabouts.

"I continue to be very worried about Latifa. Things have moved on. And so I think it should be investigated," she said.

UK Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab, has also expressed that the UN should be the mechanism to investigate Princess Latifa’s allegations. In an interview early this morning, Raab voiced concern over the footage, declaring the UK’s stance as ‘always raise[ing] human rights issues with our partners, including the UAE’. When pressed about possible sanctions or bans against Latifa’s father, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Raab was hesitant to support the idea, stating that there was a ‘strict legal threshold’ for such actions. He maintained that the UK would continue to monitor Latifa’s situation, while the UN steps in. UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, later reiterated the UK’s stance on the matter. 

The UK has previously engaged with Dubai’s ruling family when the UK High Court ruled that Sheikh Mohammed ordered the abduction of Latifa’s sister, Princess Shamsa, in 2000. More recently in 2019, Princess Haya, the youngest wife of Sheikh Mohammed, fled to the UK and applied for a protection order against her husband, Latifa’s father.

Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum is one of the richest heads of state in the world, the ruler of Dubai and vice-president of the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The videos were recorded over several months on a phone Latifa was secretly given about a year after her capture and return to Dubai. She recorded them in a bathroom as it was the only door she could lock.