SCANDAL OF PRINCESS ABDUCTED FROM UK
Dubai ruler kidnapped daughter – and ministers may have blocked police probe
MINISTERS helped a billionaire sheikh get away with the kidnap of his daughter from the streets of Britain, the High Court has heard.
The ruler of Dubai, a friend of the Queen and close Uk ally, ordered henchmen to abduct Princess Shamsa from Cambridge in 2000, a judge found.
The teenager said armed bodyguards grabbed her, injected her with sedatives and flew her to Dubai, where she is said to have been tortured. Yet when Cambridgeshire Police launched a criminal probe, it was allegedly shut down amid ‘interference’ by the Labour-run Foreign Office – as a diplomatic favour.
in an astonishing ruling, Sheikh Mohammed al-Maktoum, one of the world’s richest men, is today also exposed as having waged a campaign of fear against his wife, Princess haya, who fled to Britain last year fearing that he would kill
her. The court found he masterminded behaviour which, on the balance of probabilities, potentially runs ‘contrary to the criminal law of England and Wales, international law and internationally accepted human rights norms’.
Now for the first time, the alleged kidnap cover-up under Tony Blair’s government of 2000 can be reported. At the time, Labour was supposedly pursuing an ‘ethical foreign policy’. But now it is alleged the then foreign secretary Robin Cook, who died in 2005, effectively shut down a serious criminal inquiry into a helpless 19-year-old girl’s kidnapping. Shamsa had begged British detectives to save her, but they were forced to drop the case.
In an explosive ruling following a ten-month High Court child custody battle between the sheikh and Princess Haya, it can be revealed:
■ The court found the sheikh responsible for kidnapping Shamsa from Cambridge in 2000.
■ He also sent commandos to abduct another runaway daughter, Princess Latifa, during her escape bid in 2018, the court found.
■ Both princesses were locked in a Dubai palace and remain imprisoned to this day.
■ Oxford-educated Princess Haya fled with their two young children to London after discovering the truth about Shamsa and Latifa.
■ She feared her daughter Princess Jalila was being lined up for a forced marriage aged 11 to the notorious Saudi crown prince accused of killing journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
■ Sheikh Maktoum also discovered his wife was having an affair with her British bodyguard.
Today’s bombshell revelations come after Sheikh Maktoum lost a desperate bid to keep the case secret. He hired eight top British QCs at enormous cost but they have not been able to stop his humiliation.
First the High Court, then the Appeal Court and then the Supreme Court all threw out his bid for secrecy, ruling the world should know what Sir Andrew McFarlane, the president of the family division of the High Court, had concluded about his ‘criminal’ behaviour.
In a victory for open justice, it can be revealed that the Gulf ruler’s own ex-wife fought against him for the public’s right to know the ‘evil’ secrets of the Dubai royal family.
A million Britons visit the United Arab Emirates, of which Dubai is part, each year. The 70-year-old sheikh owns Godolphin stables, a favourite of the Queen, in Newmarket, Suffolk.
‘Welfare of the children’
He and Princess Haya, 45, his sixth and youngest wife, are regulars at Royal Ascot. Last April, Princess Haya fled in their private Boeing 737 to Britain with their children, Princess Jalila, 12, and Prince Zayed, eight. They are now holed up in an £85million mansion in central London. The sheikh – who is worth £14billion – launched a High Court case to demand the ‘summary return’ of his son and daughter, but it has backfired spectacularly, with him losing his children and his wife, and his standing as an international statesman.
Oxford- educated Princess Haya mounted her own escape from Dubai after discovering the truth about Shamsa and Latifa. Sir Andrew heard evidence from former Cambridgeshire Detective Chief Inspector David Beck who investigated Shamsa’s abduction and had requested official permission to visit Dubai to interview her.
Charles Geekie, a QC for Princess Haya, told the High Court there was ‘interference’ in the police inquiry and ‘a direct interest being expressed by the foreign secretary’. The Foreign Office has since admitted it ‘does hold relevant information’ on the case, but claimed it ‘would be likely to prejudice relations between the UK and other states if it was disclosed’.
In his ruling, Sir Andrew said: ‘The allegations that the father ordered and orchestrated the kidnap and rendition to Dubai of his daughters Shamsa and Latifa are of a very high order of seriousness. I have found he continues to maintain a regime whereby both of these young women are deprived of their liberty.’
Sir Andrew said Haya wanted him to conclude Dubai had ‘made representations’ to the Foreign Office ‘to bring an end to the investigation’ but it was not possible to prove this.
The sheikh did not appear or call any witnesses during the court case, and has not appealed against the findings. Last night he said: ‘This case concerns highly personal and private matters relating to our children. The appeal was made to protect the best interests and welfare of the children. The outcome does not protect my children from media attention in the way that other children in family proceedings in the UK are protected. 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 “fact-finding” judgment which inevitably only tells one side.’
IT sounds like the plot of a lurid crime thriller. Runaway Princess Shamsa is snatched from the streets of Cambridge by goons in the pay of her father – a fabulously wealthy Arab sheikh with links to British royalty.
She is drugged, bundled into a private jet and spirited back to the Gulf, where she is imprisoned in a palace under sedation.
Cambridgeshire police are informed of this violent kidnap but effectively blocked from investigating by our Foreign Secretary, who would rather turn a blind eye than anger the oil-rich sheikh.
By Government command, the law of the land is subsumed to political expediency. But this is not fiction. It’s chilling fact. The sheikh is Mohammed al-Maktoum, billionaire ruler of Dubai, pillar of English racing and friend of the Queen.
The Foreign Secretary was Robin Cook, ironically the architect of Tony Blair’s ‘ethical foreign policy’.
These shocking details unfolded in the High Court, where Sheikh Maktoum’s sixth wife Haya (herself a Jordanian royal) is fighting to stop him taking their two young children back to the Gulf.
The court heard how she learned of Shamsa’s captivity while in Dubai. She claims her husband subjected her to a campaign of intimidation after she inquired about it. Also fearing he wanted to marry their 11-year- old daughter to the Saudi prince accused of ordering the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, she fled to Britain with both children.
This grim saga was revealed only because of the persistence of the Daily Mail and other newspapers, and a judge who believes in transparency.
If only the Foreign Office was so enlightened. It flatly refused to disclose any information to the court for fear of prejudicing relations with ‘other states’.
How utterly craven. An outrageous crime was committed on British soil and cynically covered up. The public has a right to know exactly why, and by whom.
In this country, the rich and powerful are not above the law. Perhaps the Foreign Office needs reminding of that.