London:
The daughter of Dubai’s ruler says she is getting held captive and fears for her life just after a foiled try to flee, according to footage broadcast on Tuesday.
Sheikha Latifa has not been observed in public because she attempted to escape from the Emirate by sea in March 2018.
The BBC aired clips it stated had been filmed roughly a year just after she was captured and returned to Dubai displaying her crouched in a corner of what she says is a bathroom.
“I’m a hostage and this villa has been converted into a jail,” she says in one cellphone video.
“There’s five policemen outside and two policewomen inside the house. Every day I am worried about my safety and my life.”
In an additional video, Latifa says her circumstance is “getting more desperate every day”.
“I don’t want to be a hostage in this jail villa. I just want to be free,” she says.
The BBC released the video excerpts ahead of its investigative news programme “Panorama”.
Sky News reported that it had also received the videos but had been unable to make contact with Latifa for the final nine months.
The broadcasters reported that the videos have now been passed to the United Nations by her buddies.
The Dubai authorities did not respond to a request for comment.
Latifa’s father, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, is vice president and prime minister of the United Arab Emirates, of which Dubai is a constituent.
He shares a passion for breeding racing horses with Queen Elizabeth II and they have been photographed collectively.
“Jailed” in Dubai
The undated videos had been broadcast as Latifa’s buddies voiced concern that secret messages from her have stopped coming, the BBC stated.
The videos came from Latifa’s Finnish buddy, Tiina Jauhiainen, who accompanied her throughout her escape try.
The BBC stated it had independently verified the information of exactly where Latifa was held.
In 2018, Latifa attempted to flee the UAE on a boat that was then intercepted by commandos off the coast of India, according to her companions and the UK-based group Detained in Dubai.
“I was holding onto the yacht… They were pulling me off, I was fighting hard as I could,” she recalls.
“I was up against a lot of people with weapons.”
In the videos, Latifa says that males from the Emirates sat on her, attempted to tie her up and injected her with a sedative.
A Dubai government supply later stated that she had been “brought back” and the UAE released photographs of Latifa, saying she was getting “the necessary care and support”.
Latifa stated she was held for around 3 months in the Al-Awir central prison in Dubai, till May 2018, prior to getting moved to the villa.
In 2019, Sheikh Mohammed’s ex-wife, Haya Bint Al Hussein, fled to London, exactly where she applied for a forced marriage protection order relating to their college-age kids.
The Dubai emir subjected Haya to intimidation, a British High Court judge ruled final year, granting her application for the kids to be created wards of court enabling them to live in London with her.
Judge Andrew McFarlane also ruled that each Latifa and her sister Sheikha Shamsa, the emir’s daughters from a prior marriage, had been forcibly returned to Dubai.
He upheld Latifa’s account that she was detained at sea by Indian particular forces and returned to Dubai.
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