The United Nations said it would discuss the alleged arrest of Princess Latifa al-Maktoum, the daughter of the Dubai ruler, with the United Arab Emirates after a series of videos of the 35-year-old apparently imprisoned were broadcast as apart from a documentary on CBS News BBC News.
No one outside Dubai has heard of Latifa al-Maktoum for months, and her family has been confined to a villa for more than two years, BBC News reported.
In the videos, which were recorded for several months on a phone that her friend smuggled to al-Maktoum, the princess speaks directly to the camera explaining how she was “taken hostage.”
“All the windows are closed. I can’t open any windows. There are five policemen outside and two police women inside the house, I can’t even go out to look for fresh air,” he said.
“Every day I worry about my safety and my life”
Al-Maktoum has reportedly been detained since 2018, when he tried to flee Dubai to India with the aim of finally claiming political asylum in the United States.
Reuters
In footage filmed before attempting to flee, he said his family had control of his passport and had not been allowed to leave the United Arab Emirates since 2000.
She was intercepted trying to leave the country on a yacht with her friend, Tiina Jauhiainen, and was forcibly reassured by force and returned to Dubai, according to the videos.
Jauhiainen was transferred to the country separately and detained 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,” al-Maktoum said in one of the videos on the phone. “The police threatened me that I would be in prison all my life and never see the sun again … I just want to be free.”
“The situation is desperate every day”
After his own release from prison and no news from Latifa, Jauhiainen founded the “Free Latifa” pressure group.
In 2019, with increasing international pressure, former UN Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson traveled to Dubai to look for 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 herself with her two children. It was the only time Al-Maktoum was allowed to leave his village during his captivity, he said in the videos.
Princess Haya told Robinson that Latifa had mental health difficulties.
“I was initially deceived by my good friend, Princess Haya, because she was deceived. Haya began to explain that Latifa had a rather serious bipolar problem. And they told me, in a very convincing way, ‘We don’t “I don’t want Latifa going through any other trauma,” Robinson said.
The British government faces calls to get involved in al-Maktoum’s case, as his father, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum, has powerful connections to the UK and visits them often.
“I don’t know what they plan to do with me. I really don’t know. So the situation is desperate every day and now I’m really tired of it,” al-Maktoum said in one of his videos.