On July 16, Princess Mahra filed for divorce from her husband via Instagram, using the legal formula of repudiation reserved for men. A sensational gesture that has brought the spotlight back on the opulent court of Dubai, especially on the emir Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum and the mysteries of his life. The man, who is vice president and prime minister of the emirate, presents himself as a champion of women’s emancipation, a modernizer with a passion for poetry (he is an expert in Nabati, the traditional Bedouin poetic genre, and is himself a poet). The controversial events in which he was the protagonist, however, would tell another story, that of an absolute sovereign, a sort of “father master” and possessive husband who would not hesitate to severely punish anyone who did not respect his will.
Princess Latifa’s Cry for Help
Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktum is the man who gave a new face to the Emirate of Dubai, making it the glitzy and glittering place it is today. Among his successful initiatives we can remember the construction of the Burj Khalifa, the tallest skyscraper in the world (828 meters), inaugurated in January 2010 and the Burj al-Arab, one of the most luxurious hotels in the world, completed in 1999. It is impossible, then, to forget the image of the sheikh next to the Queen Elizabeth in the royal box during the Ascot races. Over the years, Mohammed al-Maktoum would do everything to portray himself as an enlightened politician in step with the times.
For some, however, it would have been just empty words. A facade strategy to strengthen the reputation of the emirate and the prime minister himself. Proof of this would be the rebellion of four princesses of the royal family of Dubai: Latifa, Shamsa, Haya and Bouchra. The first two are daughters of Mohammed al-Maktoum, the third is his ex-wife and the fourth was the wife of his brother. All four were reportedly victims of persecution and intimidation by the emir.
In particular, the story involving Latifa and Shamsa is chilling, brought to light by investigations conducted by the Guardian, the BBC and the New Yorker. In February 2018, the Princess Latifa bint Mohammed al Maktum shot a video in which she recounted her life as a prisoner at the Palace and handed it over to the activists of “Detained in Dubai”. In the film, which was supposed to be a sort of insurance “for every eventuality”as the BBC pointed out, the princess also described her escape plan, which she would put into action shortly thereafter.
Aided by her Finnish friend and capoeira instructor, Tiina Jauhiainen, whom she met in 2010, and by French businessman Hervé Jaubert (who had already fled Dubai years earlier, after being convicted in absentia for embezzlement), Latifa planned to go to a shopping centre with Tiina, so as not to arouse suspicion, hide in the tyre compartment of an SUV driven by her friend, and reach the border withOman and finally, board Hervé’s yacht.
The princess would have thought of reaching theIndia and from there to head towards Europe with the intention of requesting political asylum. Her desire for freedom, however, would be shattered on March 4, 2018, after eight days of travel. Intercepted by Indian special forces, Latifa would have been returned to the authorities of the emirate, namely to her father. Before returning to the Palace, however, she would have been locked up in al-Awir, a prison in the desert, to “pay for”, let’s say, her disobedience towards the emir.
On March 11, 2018, the group “Detained in Dubai” released the video Latifa had filmed in the hope that her testimony would become public knowledge and persuade the West to take her side. Her words are chilling: “If you’re watching this video, it’s not a good thing. Either I’m dead or I’m in a very, very, very bad situation.”
The 2018 escape attempt wasn’t even the first: the princess had already tried to escape in June 2002, the BBC recalled, when she was only 16 years old. According to her story, she had taken a taxi to the border and then bought a cyclist’s bicycle, reaching the border with Oman. On that occasion too, Latifa was intercepted by the Emirati authorities and taken to an unknown place in the desert, where she was locked up and tortured. It seems, in fact, that for five consecutive hours the father’s men beat her on the soles of her feet with a wooden stick, until she was unable to walk and they forced her to remain in the dark.
After 13 months of imprisonment the princess would return home. However, violence would not break her spirit. So Mohammed bin Rashid would decide to keep her prisoner in his house for another two years and control her will through the administration of tranquilizers.
The Story of Shamsa
Latifa would not be the first princess to try to escape her father’s authority, as the Guardian reported. In July 2000, her older sister Shamsahthen nineteen, allegedly took advantage of a moment of distraction by the guards to escape from one of the family residences near Cheltenham and reach London, where she contacted the lawyer Paul Simon. That escape attempt also ended badly: the princess was taken back to Dubai and it seems that no one has seen her since. Paul Simon managed to speak to her six months after her return to his homeland. Shamsa allegedly revealed to him that she was a prisoner in the Palace.
Latifa, on the other hand, would meet her sister only once, in the following years, noticing her expression numbed by the antidepressants she would be forced to take. “(He looked) like a zombie”she said, quoted by Business Insider. Then all contact was cut off. A silence that continues to this day and has cast doubt on Princess Shamsa’s safety more than once, also because according to rumors she attempted suicide three times. Not even her sister Latifa knows her fate and the constant questions addressed to her family were of no avail. In the 2018 video, the princess asked the West for help in shedding light on this disturbing mystery. However, every attempt at investigation was shipwrecked, crushed under the weight of the power of Mohammed al-Maktoum.
Where did Bouchra go?
The emir of Dubai, the New Yorker reported, would also be implicated in another sad story concerning one of the women of his family, Bouchra bint Mohammed al-Maktum. In 2000, the latter, wife of Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktum’s elder brother, namely Maktum bin Rashid al-Maktum, decided to go and live in London with her children and become financially independent by pursuing a career as a painter.
Same script as other times: Bouchra would have been blocked by the royal guards of Dubai and forced to board a plane that would have taken her back home. The babysitters of her children would have reported the kidnappingbut even then everything would have been hushed up. Bouchra would have died (again the conditional is a must) between 2006 and 2007 at the age of 34. The cause of death is not even clear.
In this regard, in a letter to some friends, Princess Latifa is said to have formulated a complaint very serious: after the death of Maktoum bin Rashid in 2006, Mohammed bin Rashid allegedly gave orders to his men to assassinate Bouchra. “He felt threatened by her and killed her”Latifa would have added.
Reactions to Latifa’s video
L’Emir of Dubai has always denied all the accusations of her daughter Latifa. Her lawyers also claim that the princess never intended to escape. In fact, in 2018 the Emirati authorities allegedly saved her from an attempted kidnapping.
After the famous video in 2018, the royal family allegedly put insistent pressure on Latifa to retract her version of events for the good of the emirate, reassuring international public opinion. The princess did not give in. Not immediately, at least. Thus the Palace spread the news that the young woman had begun therapy to treat a mental disorder, of which no further details were disclosed. In April 2019, her friend Tiina Jauhiainen and Detained in Dubai activist David Haigh allegedly secretly sent the princess a telephone to continue communicating with them.
Thanks to this trick Latifa turned other video clipsquoted by the BBC. In one of these she would have hidden in the bathroom, “the only room in the house where I can lock myself”to further tell his difficult situation: “I am held hostage in a villa that has been transformed into a prison” with “the bars on the windows” And “five guards outside the house and two inside…I don’t know if I’ll survive…the guards are threatening me, saying that I might never see the light of day again.”
In July 2020, however, a very strange thing happened. Incredible, even. The princess broke off relations with her allies Jauhiainen and Haigh. In 2021, she returned to the public and a photo was published on Instagram showing her in a shopping mall in Dubai with two friends. In 2022, she met former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. What would have happened? How would Latifa have gone from captivity to apparent total freedom? On Twitter, Bachelet, quoted by Guarian, reported the news that the princess had granted her “to be well”.
On April 26, 2023, on her new Instagram account, the daughter ofemir wrote: “…I am totally free and live an independent life. I live in Dubai…I can…travel.” Regarding this surprising change, a nurse who had worked for the royal family declared: “I believe that (Latifa) negotiated…and is now living her life within acceptable limits.”
Princess Haya’s War
Almost simultaneously with Latifa’s story, another case of harassment and intimidation emerged at the Dubai court, reported by the BBC. On 15 April 2019, the Princess Hayawife of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum since 2004, fled Dubai with her two children to the United Kingdom. Haya, half-sister of King Abdullah of Jordan (they share the same father, the late King Hussein), is said to have decided to leave the emirate because she feared for her life and that of her children.
When she arrived in London she went to the High Court, accusing her husband of repeated violence. She also asked for a protection order against the possibility of a forced marriage. Apparently, in fact, the sheikh has promised in marriage Jalila, his daughter with Haya, to the Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman (who is 22 years older than the young woman).
Sheikh al-Maktoum defended himself by claiming that the tragic custom of arranged marriages was not respected in the United Arab Emirates and accused Haya of betrayalThe princess, the sheikh said, had a two-year affair with her bodyguard, Russell Flowers, and spent $6.4 million to keep the story from leaking out.
Haya did not let herself be intimidated and, aided by the lawyer Fiona Shackleton (the same one who represented Charles III at the time of his divorce from Lady Diana), he managed to prove that Sheikh al-Maktoum hacked his cell phone using the spyware “Pegasus”.
He also said he had been subjected to a heavy intimidation campaign: one morning, for example, Haya had found a loaded gun in his room. In December 2021, the High Court in London ruled that Sheikh al-Maktoum “It’s a menace” for Princess Haya and her children, ordering him to pay his ex-wife £554 million (€650 million).