The runaway princess of Dubai: Part one | 60 Minutes Australia

not even the creators of a James Bond film could come up with the plot as intriguing and frightening as this 32 year old Princess Latifah is the daughter of Dubai's all-powerful ruler she was born into a life of extreme wealth but there was one thing her money couldn't buy freedom so the four and a half months ago with the help of a former French spy she made a daring escape but for all the meticulous planning she failed spectacularly and on the high seas somewhere between Dubai and India the runaway princess's yacht was intercepted Latifah was kidnapped by heavily armed soldiers and hasn't been seen since hello my name is Tim I was born on December 5 1985 princess Latifah is the 32 year old daughter of one of the richest and most powerful men in the world divides ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum and I'm making this video because it could be the last video I make this 38 minute video recorded days before her and tempted escaped from her homeland contains allegations which if true blow apart the glossy billion-dollar reputation of Dubai as a progressive beacon in the Middle East my vision the debate will be number one and the princess attacks her father's character as well a man who mixes with royalty and rulers whose the world's largest investor in horse racing and the force behind the globe's biggest airline Emirates all my father cares about is his reputation and watching this video it's not such a good thing either I'm dead the princess has not been seen since March the fourth this year when it's claimed commandos stormed a yacht in international waters off India to grab Latifah and drag her back to Dubai as intriguing as the claims are the princess's story is backed by four main allies the woman who escaped Dubai with Princess Latifah and was with her on the getaway yacht Tina jahannum they were telling me close your eyes I will shoot you right here take your last breath now what was the last image you have motivo she was kicking and screaming and she was fighting for her life and you haven't seen let's say four since then No beot skipper French spy Irv Asia Bear I could not believe the daughter of the ruler who would want to escape you know when a woman speak about abuse torture imprisonment Australian human rights activist Roger Sterling who received the final frantic telephone call for help from the princess the first thing she said it helped me there's people outside there's men outside I can hear gunshots please help me I know I just jumped 20 feet in the air you know it was serious and British lawyer and businessman David Haig have you made the whole thing up why clearly not and you know the evidence is all there you know it's not just us now that the United Nations has accepted this Human Rights Watch is behind us it's not just us at the beginning it was just us and we were battling everybody thinking well this is so fantastic it sounds like a movie it can't be true but then people start to realize it was true [Music] to the outside world Princess Latifah lived a privileged and carefree life in Dubai her best friend Tina Honan says she had a passion for adventure skydiving in particular but there was also a darker side to her life the princess confided in Tina has she been imprisoned and tortured after first trying to flee Dubai when she was a teenager so in total I was in prison for three years and four months I went in in June 2002 and I came out October 2005 it was constant torture constant torture even when they weren't physically beating me up they would torture me they would switch off all the lights I was in solitary confinement by myself totally and there's no windows there's no light so when they switch off the light it was pitch-black we could switch it off for days so I don't I didn't know when one day ended that the next began she basically had no freedom she had curfews obviously she could not have a normal life and say for example date date guy if she wanted to she was not allowed to have certain friends even talked to certain family members her life was just very restricted and it felt like she always had to look over his shoulder she had also not travelled for nearly two decades what kind of woman was Latifah I mean was she in a sense a Western woman trapped in the Middle East I always felt that Latif was very different from other Marathi women first of all all her friends were Westerners so she didn't feel comfortable hanging around with the local people and she didn't feel like she belong in that culture at all [Music] Latifa felt trapped and oppressed here in Dubai eventually she hatched an extraordinary escape plan with her best friend Tina it was equal parts Thelma and Louise and James Bond at first fleeing by Road to a man then by boat and jetski to India and finally flying to the United States where the princess was going to seek political asylum the reward was freedom at last but if both women were caught well the consequences would be dire you must have been nervous helping her to organize her escape because if you got caught in the process of doing all of this I mean you were in big trouble yes definitely but she was willing to take the risk she would often say this this is life or death for me she was so fed up with her life in UAE that she was willing to take the risk even if she would not make it escaping from Dubai was risky but not impossible so Latifah commissioned former French spy evasion bear for the job years earlier he'd masterminded his own escape from the city after his business dealings went sour and his passport was confiscated so I understood that no matter what I said or no matter what I did I was being framed to be guilty no matter what as dramatized in this self-made documentary Herve masqueraded as a woman to smuggle himself out to a boat and sail to India I was invisible it doesn't matter if you're pretty or ugly or fat once you wear the abaya you become invisible I know I experienced it I know exactly the feeling nobody is paying attention to you nobody is watching you so the plan was to pick up Latifah and Tina right here of whom Scott and them sell to go Latif is daring escape from Dubai was plotted over many months finally at dawn on February the 24th this year the moment of truth arrived before we got in the car were like this is it it's really happening we were hugging each others and whatever happens we're both doing this because we want to do it and what was she like was she nervous or excited actually more excited than nervous because she felt like she has nothing to lose constantly on a tight leash Latifah had to be smuggled out of Dubai in the boot of Tina's car on the road to a man she stopped and completely changed her appearance this is basically our last selfie in UAE as you can see that if it looks very excited it's her first time sitting in the front seat in the car she's all yes ever she's all used to having a driver and sitting on the backseat as yeah as far as she's concerned all her life did she say it was a bit weird sitting in the front seat she said it was weird but very liberating we're like we're like tell my Louise and she actually said no no no no that doesn't have a happy ending don't talk about that once in a man they then faced potentially the most deadly leg of the escape a five-hour trip by dinghy and jet skis through high seas to international waters where Vaes yacht the Nostromo was waiting but when I saw I saw a woman who knew what she was doing she was absolutely determined to get away but it is there was no joy because the situation was tense how I would say it's like you you are in a war zone so you are not safe yet he said what happened then he sets out for India learnt from right away turn around the boat and I turned away it was then an eight day voyage to Goa in India through what's infamously referred to as pirate alley off the coast of Oman on day two of the journey Latifah decided to message her family and let them know she'd escaped dear friends and family I've left to buy and she was also stating the reasons did she get replies from any of her family members well their responses where we're really shocking like one of our sisters reply was what the the alarm was now well and truly raised an Interpol red notice issued at Dubai's request confirms the tifa's disappearance but it states she'd been kidnapped why did she message them at that stage and not wait until you'd made it to India I think she was so excited that she finally had her freedom so she thought already she was free at this stage she didn't think there was any any trouble coming before they got to India now she was aware of some trouble coming but imagine being living in a : cage all your life and trouble did come just as they were desperately close to their destination that almost reached India's tourist hotspot of Goa when are they noticed they were being tracked by air and by sea he claims the Indian Coast Guard was on their tail but being in international waters who they assumed they'd be safe he was wrong at 10 p.m. that night they were raided when they attacked us it was brutal I mean butl and I'm a military guy I can take candle I know the difference between soft and and violent and also I was the captain I was concerned for everybody else Michael and Latifah and Tina because had I made the wrong move they would have shot me on the spot I know I saw their face that they did oh those guys they're trained you know trained killer that's when we started hearing noises from from the upper deck which sounded like gunshots we were really really scared I thought that was it I was I was not going to make it coming up they hit me blood was pouring out of my head a desperate cry for help for the t4 telephone at me and said I can help come true the princess is captured she said don't take me back to UAE rather shoot me here and now they put themselves in the corner the world is watching them where is she that's next on 60 minutes hello I'm Tara Brown thanks for watching to keep up with the latest from 60 minutes Australia make sure you subscribe to our Channel you can also download the 9 now app for full episodes and other exclusive 60 minutes content

Channel: 60 Minutes Australia

Views: 4,195,452

Rating: 4.5032177 out of 5

Keywords: 60 Minutes, 60 Minutes Australia, Liz Hayes, Charles Wooley, Tara Brown, Liam, Bartlett, Allison Langdon, Tom Steinfort, princess of Dubai, Princess Latifa, Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed, French spy, royal family, missing, escape, runaway, kidnapped

Id: TPuhzT47XWs

Length: 13min 27sec (807 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 15 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/lRevenant]

Very interesting thanks for sharing, I’m going to watch the next part.

[u/wubbelschwupp]

Thanks for that. It's very weird though, planning an escape for so long and then taking your phone with you, even texting your family at that point...

[u/Alice_B_Tokeless]

She coulda been Queen Latifah if she’d stayed

[u/curios_shy_annon]

Tl;dw?

[u/ruboius99]

She dead bruh