The United Nations said it would discuss with the United Arab Emirates the alleged detention of Princess Latifa al-Maktoum, daughter of the Dubai ruler, after a series of videos of the 35-year-old, apparently taken in captivity, were broadcast as part of a documentary on the CBS News partner network, BBC News.
Latifa al-Maktoum has not heard from anyone outside Dubai for months, and she was reportedly confined to a villa by her family for more than two years, BBC News reported.
In the videos, which were recorded over several months on a phone smuggled to al-Maktoum by her friend, the princess speaks directly to the camera, explaining how she was being “held hostage”.
“All the windows are locked. I can’t open any windows. There are five policemen outside and two female policemen inside the house, and I can’t even go outside for fresh air,” she said.
“Every day I am concerned about my safety and my life”
Al-Maktoum is said to have been held captive since 2018, when she tried to flee Dubai to India with the aim of eventually seeking political asylum in the United States.
Reuters
In images filmed before her attempted escape, she said that her family had control of her passport and that she had not been allowed to leave the United Arab Emirates since 2000.
She was intercepted trying to escape the country on a yacht with her friend, Tiina Jauhiainen, and was forcibly injected with a tranquilizer and brought back to Dubai, she says in the videos.
Jauhiainen was taken back to the country separately and held in a detention center for two weeks.
“Every day I worry about my safety and my life. I don’t know if I will survive this situation, ”said al-Maktoum in one of the telephone videos. “The police threatened me saying that I will be in prison for life and never see the sun again … I just want to be free.”
“The situation is getting more desperate by the day”
After his own release from prison, and without news from Latifa, Jauhiainen started the “Free Latifa” lobby group.
In 2019, with increasing international pressure, former UN Human Rights Commissioner Mary Robinson traveled to Dubai to seek evidence that al-Maktoum was still alive.
The two met at the home of another member of the royal family, al-Maktoum’s stepmother, Princess Haya, who later fled the country with her two children. It was the only time that al-Maktoum was allowed to leave his villa during his captivity, she said in the videos.
Princess Haya told Robinson that Latifa was having mental health problems.
“I was deceived, initially by my good friend Princess Haya, because she was deceived. Haya started to explain that Latifa had a very serious bipolar problem. And they were telling me, in a very convincing way, ‘We don’t'” I don’t want that Latifa goes through more trauma “, said Robinson.
The British government is facing calls to get involved in the al-Maktoum case, as his father, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum, has powerful connections in the UK and visits frequently.
“I don’t know what they plan to do to me. I really don’t know. So the situation is getting more desperate by the day, and I’m really tired of it right now,” said al-Maktoum in one of his videos.