A frightened daughter of the ruler of Dubai has pleaded for help by holding her father “hostage” in disturbing recordings 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 in her ‘prison’ in the kingdom, support group Free Latifah said.
“I am a hostage and this villa has been turned into a prison,” said Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum’s daughter in one of the clips shared with the BBC.
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She filmed the videos in a bathroom “because it’s the only room with a door I can lock,” she said.
“There are five policemen outside and two policemen in the house, and I can not even go outside to get fresh air,” Latifa, 35, continued, adding that her windows were “locked”.
“Every day I worry about my safety and my life. I do not really know if I will survive this situation.
“The police have threatened me that I will be in jail all my life and I will never see the sun again,” she said in the clips shared with the BBC.
Free Latifah says the princess is one of about 30 children of Sheikh Mohammed, 71, who also serves as prime minister and vice president in the UAE.
She has been detained since her father captured her in a boat outside India when she wanted to flee Dubai in 2018, Free Latifah said.
They decided to release her secret recordings after losing all contact late last year.
“Now that communication with Latifa has been broken, we are seriously concerned about her safety and believe it was the right time to disclose some of the videos Latifa sent us to the media,” her cousin Marcus Essabri said.
Dubai has always insisted that the princess is safe and family.
But Mary Robinson, a former president of Ireland and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, admitted that she was ‘deceived’ into helping present the statue when she was photographed with the princess after her return to Dubai in 2018.
Robinson told the BBC that Latifa told her bipolar and did not ask her about her situation because she did not want to increase the “trauma” of her ‘condition’.
“I was especially deceived when the photos became known,” she said of the images used to prove Latifa was OK.
“It was a total surprise … I was absolutely stunned,” Robinson said.
Free Latifah called on President Biden to intervene and for people to boycott the Kingdom.
“We need tourists to decide not to go to Dubai, and we need the world’s leaders to force Sheikh Mohammed to end this grotesque charade and put an end to a horrific period of parenting and human rights violations that have plagued the world, “said the princess’s lawyer, David Haigh, one of the group’s founders.
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Sheikh Mohammed has long been facing abuse.
Last year, a British judge ruled that the sheikh had waged a campaign of fear and intimidation against his estranged wife and ordered the abduction of two of his daughters, one of whom was Sheikha Latifa.
The verdict comes in a fight between Sheikh Mohammed and the estranged wife, Princess Haya, daughter of late King Hussein of Jordan, over the welfare of their two children.
Sheikh Mohammed is the founder of the successful Godolphin horse racing stable and is apparently friendly 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.