The United Nations pledged to seek information from the United Arab Emirates about the royal daughter of the country’s vice president after she was seen on tape saying she was being imprisoned.
The video messages from Sheikha Latifa bint Mohammed Al Maktoum, reported by the BBC this week, are said to have been covertly recorded on a phone in a locked bathroom. The 35-year-old princess, who tried and failed to flee the country three years ago, describes being held captive in a heavily guarded Dubai villa.
“I don’t really know if I’m going to survive this situation,” she says on the video, adding that she’s a “hostage” who’s “worried about my safety and my life.”
Friends say they had not heard back from Sheikha Latifa in six months.
Dubai’s Sheikha Latifa issues video from ‘villa jail’
https://t.co/PosYjhvkM5 pic.twitter.com/qcMKStSHse— Geeta Mohan گیتا موہن गीता मोहन (@Geeta_Mohan) February 17, 2021
The videos attracted international attention, with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights pledging to “raise these new developments with the UAE.” British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab called the tapes “very distressing,” adding he supported a U.N. investigation. He said the parliament was “concerned,” though there is likely no chance of government intervention because Sheikha Latifa is not a British national.
Rodney Dixon, a London-based attorney for Sheikha Latifa, told the Associated Press that he hopes for a “simple solution” that avoids sanctions and litigation.
Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, her father, and the Dubai royal court have said Sheikha Latifa is safe in the loving care of her family, despite the emerging videos of her apparent distress. The Washington Examiner reached out to the UAE government’s Dubai Media Office for comment.
The princess attempted to escape the UAE in 2018 with the help of an ex-French spy and friend but was detained by authorities in a boat off the coast of India. Sheikha Latifa said at the time her escape was “the start of my claiming my life and my freedom.”
The aftermath of her attempted escape and subsequent capture affected what Sheikha Latifa described as the carefully controlled image maintained by the family of her father. Sheikh Mohammed, who governs Dubai and is also the prime minister and vice president in the hereditarily ruled UAE, was deemed by a British judge to have conducted a campaign of fear tactics against one of his several wives and ordered the abduction of two of his daughters, including Sheikha Latifa.
It would not be the first time a princess attempted to flee the Gulf State. In 2019, Princess Haya, the wife of Dubai ruler Sheikh Mohammed Al Maktoum, fled to London in fear for her life.
