Princess Latifa, daughter of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates, has alleged being held hostage by her father.
Latifa had attempted fleeing the country in 2018 but the plan failed after security operatives foiled the move.
But in a series of secret video obtained by BBC Panorama, Latifa said she had been imprisoned since she was kidnapped with “No trial, no charge. Nothing.”
She said: “I’m reaching a point where I’m getting so tired of everything. It’s like a circus … I just want to be free. I don’t know what they’re planning on doing with me. The situation is getting more desperate every day.”
Latifa was said to have recorded the footage, wherein she bared lurid details of her arrest since 2018, using a phone she smuggled.
Dubai and the UAE have previously said she is safe in the care of family.
Prior to her foiled escape attempt in 2018, she had released a video on YouTube wherein she narrated what she was about to face at the time.
“If you are watching this video, it’s not such a good thing, either I’m dead or I’m in a very, very, very bad situation,” she had said.
In another video from April 2019, she described being held in “a villa that has been converted into jail”.
“All the windows are barred shut. There’s five policemen outside and two policewomen inside the house. And I can’t even go outside to get any fresh air,” she said.
This is not the first time the children of the Dubai billionaire ruler will attempt to escape from the family.
Shamsa, Latifa’s elder sister, was also seized on the streets of Cambridge, UK, after fleeing the family’s Surrey estate in 2000.
In an email from her captivity in Dubai, Shamsa alleged: “I was caught by my father, he managed to track me down through someone I kept in touch with … He sent four Arab men to catch me, they were carrying guns and threatening me.”
Lafta’s latest video has since sparked international outrage, with several human rights groups calling for investigation into the matter.
