A terrified daughter of the ruler of Dubai pleaded for help in being ‘held hostage’ by her father in disturbing footage released after her supporters lost contact with her.
Princess Latifa Al Maktoum made the whispered pleas for help in a series of clandestine videos recorded on a phone smuggled to her villa “prison” in the Kingdom, the Free Latifah support group said.
“I am a hostage and this villa has been converted into a prison,” said Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum’s daughter in one of the clips shared with the BBC.
She filmed the videos in a bathroom “because this is the only room with a door that I can lock,” she said.
“There are five police officers outside and two police officers in the house, and I can’t even go out to get fresh air,” continued Latifah, 35, adding that her windows were “closed”.
“Every day I worry about my safety and my life. I don’t really know if I’m going to survive this situation.
“The police have threatened me that I will be in prison all my life and that I will never see the sun again,” she said in the clips shared with the BBC.
Free Latifah says the princess is one of approximately 30 children of Sheikh Mohammed, 71, who also serves as prime minister and vice president in the hereditary ruled UAE.
She has been detained since her father captured her in a boat off the coast of India when she tried to flee Dubai in 2018, Free Latifah said.
They decided to make her secret recordings public after losing all contact late last year, they said.
“Now that communication with Latifa has been lost, we are very concerned about her safety and we think this was the right time to show some of the videos that Latifa sent us to the media,” said her cousin, Marcus Essabri.
Dubai has always maintained that the princess was safe and with family.
But Mary Robinson, a former president of Ireland and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, admitted she was ‘tricked’ into helping present that image when she was photographed with the princess after her return to Dubai in 2018.
Robinson told the BBC that she had been told Latifa was bipolar and that she did not ask about her situation because she did not want to increase “the trauma” of her “condition.”
“I was especially fooled when the photos went public,” she said of the images used to “prove” that Latifa was okay.
“That was a total surprise … I was absolutely stunned,” said Robinson.
Free Latifah called on President Biden to intervene and to boycott people of the kingdom.
“We need tourists who decide not to go to Dubai, and we need world leaders to force Sheikh Mohammed to end this grotesque charade and end a horrific period of parental and human rights violations that have caused the world disgusted, ”said the princess’ lawyer, David Haigh, one of the group’s founders.
Sheikh Mohammed has faced allegations of abuse for a long time.
Last year, a British judge ruled that the sheik had waged a campaign of fear and intimidation against his estranged wife and ordered the kidnapping of two of his daughters, one of them Sheikha Latifa.
The verdict came in a battle between Sheikh Mohammed and estranged wife Princess Haya, daughter of the late King Hussein of Jorda, over the welfare of their two children.
Sheikh Mohammed is the founder of the successful horse racing stable Godolphin and is said to be friends with the British Queen Elizabeth II.
In 2019, he received a trophy from the Queen after one of his horses won a race at Royal Ascot.
The government’s Dubai Media Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment, The Associated Press said.
With pole wires