Princess Latifa: What happened to Dubai's 'missing' princess?

so uh i'm in a villa i'm i'm a hostage and uh this villa has been converted into a jail all the windows are borrowed shut i can't open any window for three years the world has heard nothing from princess latifah the missing daughter of one of the world's richest men dubai's billionaire ruler mohammed bin rashid al maktoum but now you can hear princess latifah's story in her own words i'm doing this video from a bathroom because it's the only room with the door i can lock in these video messages princess latifah says she is being held against her will in a royal villa in dubai and the door to my room i put um because i can't lock the door to my room there's no key i put like a bottle and some boxes underneath so if somebody opens the handle it will make a large loud sound so it will be like an alarm so i stopped talking nine months ago my secret communication with the princess stopped we don't know why or where she is now latifah's father is the ruler of dubai and the prime minister of the united arab emirates the sheikh is a powerful and influential man with horse racing and property assets in the uk he's regularly seen alongside heads of state including the queen but there's another side allegations that have come from a number of members of his family two ex-wives claim he abused them as have latifah and one of her sisters the sheikh denies all of this from the outside sheikha latifah appeared to live a life of luxury she had her horses a love of animals a passion for skydiving but replying to questions sky news sent to her in the spring and summer of 2019 she tells of a different reality i'm being punished and i don't know what can happen to me and how long this will last and if they decide to release me like how my life will be but i'm not safe at all this story starts back in 2018 when latifa first went public in a youtube post and i'm making this video because it could be the last video i make yeah she says she was desperate for her freedom so that year in february she tried to escape her best friend tina yao heinen went with her i believe that latifa has wanted to be free all her life and i'm not satisfied until latifa is allowed to travel to a country of her choice and and get the freedom that she's always wanted they made plans and practiced with latifah trying different techniques to navigate water in the palace pool then with the plans in place they drove from downtown dubai across the border into oman from muscat they took a small boat then jet skis to a waiting yacht and they set sail for goa but just miles from the coast of india and what they believed was safety armed indian commandos boarded you know i was i was prepared for anything you know i'm used to much worse and i'm prepared for anything i was prepared to even lose my life for freedom but i wasn't prepared to put my best friend in that situation or to see her get hurt that was the hardest thing latifah and those helping her were forcibly taken back to the united arab emirates i was holding on to the yacht like with my hands the side of the ropes on the side of the yacht i was holding onto it and they were pulling me off i was fighting as hard as i could i was wearing flip-flops and my flip-flops came off so i was barefoot i didn't have any weapons i was tired i was up against a lot of people with weapons you know like it wasn't easy in these clips recorded on a smartphone that was smuggled to her shaykh latifah says she was beaten and injected with a substance she believes was a tranquilizer the one who was sitting in my stomach he grabs my chest and he says to me shut up shut up so i got really really angry and i was hitting him with my hands and screaming at him to get off me and i was like so so angry and i just kept fighting with him really really hard and nobody cared but then eventually because like i was really really really like struggling a lot the other emirati guy told him uh like get offer and then he sat on me and he was trying to help the other guy tie up my legs but i was fighting and this guy came with a small um pouch like a camouflage pouch and he took out the needle and he injected me in my arm and i was like fighting i was saying don't do that don't do that don't do that when i woke up the private jet had already landed in dubai and one of the policewoman she was like i woke up and she was braiding my hair while i was asleep and i noticed that my hands were like really bruised and swollen especially in my left hand because the zip ties were still on me and i was still on the stretcher still tied completely to the stretcher she says she was questioned and taken to a cell in al aware jail on the outskirts of dubai before she was moved to the guarded villa the cell was in section 13 in alhawi jail and i was there from my kidnap day until may 27 2018 so approximately three months i was in in a jail cell for quite some time i was sleep deprived and i wouldn't really sleep properly i would just sometimes pass out from exhaustion it wasn't um it wasn't a good situation and yeah the bathroom had no door and i think it's just another way like to humiliate you you know this is very much latifah's account her father has a very different view he says latifa was tricked into escaping by criminals who wanted money and that returning her to dubai was a rescue mission pictures were released nine months after the escape showing the princess with former un human rights chief mary robinson who says she was duped into taking part in the photos the shake says the princess is safe and well and that they want to maintain her privacy so which version should we believe many of the details from latifah's account have been accepted by a senior british judge now a british judge has found that the ruler of dubai is responsible for the kidnapping and detention of two of his daughters latifah's story was brought up during a high court case between the sheikh and his now former wife princess hayer bent al-hussein in that case the judge accepted that the sheikh had been responsible for the forcible kidnapping and detention of latifa the judge accepted the actions were undertaken upon the instructions of the father and carried out by agents acting on his behalf he accepted eyewitness testimony from princess hayer who told the court latifah was held against her will she was locked in a house guarded from the outside and from the inside in response to the court case the sheikh said as a head of government i was not able to participate in the court's fact-finding process this has resulted in the release of a fast-finding judgment which inevitably tells only one side of the story her friends did not hear from latifah after the escape until around a year later a message reached tina who had been on the boat with the princess when i got the first message from latifah i was i couldn't believe it was happening i was so emotional i i couldn't sleep for a couple of nights um because there was this time frame that i was having a hard time contacting her it's it's very hard to imagine how it must be like to be in prison for for three years already another friend david hague who was also charged and detained in the uae over fraud allegations says he is hoping the videos will encourage the un and others to act we want politicians and former politicians and world leaders and you know celebrities and so-called influence all the people that go to dubai in the uae promote that country to wake up and see what the reality is this is a country that is literally i mean people will be on those beaches in dubai a few hundred meters away from where latifah is essentially in solitary confinement a hostage we agreed to run these videos when latifa herself wanted them to be made public but we have not heard from her for nine months her video messages have now been passed by her friends to the united nations so we have made the decision to air them as for where latifa is now that is unknown representatives of the sheikh did not respond to requests for comment

Channel: Sky News

Views: 505,116

Rating: 4.6737332 out of 5

Keywords: NEWS, SKY NEWS, NEWS.SKY.COM, SKYNEWS.COM, SKY, DUBAI, MISSING PRINCESS, PRINCESS LATIFA, UAE, Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, DOCUMENTARY, WHERE IS PRINCESS LATIFA?, INVESTIGATION, CRIME, MISSING PEOPLE, DUBAI RULER, LATIFA, DETAINED IN DUBAI, MISSING, PRINCESS, UK, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES, WORLD, RULER, FREEDOM, ESCAPE, HOSTAGE, DIPLOMACY, FRANCE, VIDEOS, INTERVIEW, Sanya Burgess, Emirate, Middle East, burj khalifa

Id: GBrgzG_SGU0

Length: 9min 55sec (595 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 16 2021