QUEEN’S ASCOT ‘SNUB’ FOR SHEIKH
Dubai ruler is ‘unlikely’ to be invited to Royal Box after phone spying scandal
THE Queen is ‘unlikely’ to host Dubai’s ruler at the Royal Box at Ascot after the High Court found he had ordered a spyware operation on British soil, it emerged yesterday.
Sources said they didn’t expect Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum to receive further invitations to join the Queen at horse racing events for the foreseeable future after the judge’s ruling.
It came as pressure grew on ministers yesterday to order an inquiry into the phone hacking scandal.
Tory peer Baroness Shackleton was among those targeted, and she alerted Black Rod and parliamentary secushe
‘Total abuse of trust’
rity officials that her official parliamentary emails could have been accessed. The surveillance operation centred on Sheikh Mohammed’s exwife Princess Haya, who was hacked using military-grade spyware after fled to Britain, giving potential access to her private messages, emails and photographs.
Buckingham Palace refused to comment on reports that the billionaire sheikh would be banned from the Royal Box at Ascot, but an insider said they expected a ‘cooling off’. An informed source said: ‘I think it is unlikely they will meet either in public or in private.’ But they stressed: ‘This does not mean those working for them wouldn’t continue to co-operate, of course.’
Another source pointed out that the Foreign Office had quickly taken steps to emphasise the importance of the UK-UAE bilateral relationship, and that Buckingham Palace would ‘almost certainly’ take its lead from that. Current and former MPs called for an investigation, regardless of the sheikh’s wealth, power and long-standing friendship with the Queen.
Former Home Office minister Norman Baker said: ‘We are softpedalling because the monarch in question is friendly with our Royal Family. The law should be applied equally, not selectively, and on the face of it an offence has been committed.’
The High Court ruled Sheikh Mohammed, 72, was ‘more probable than not’ to have authorised the hacking using state-of-the-art surveillance software licensed to the United Arab Emirates government. He is ruler of Dubai and prime minister of the UAE.
Judge Sir Andrew McFarlane said it amounted to ‘a total abuse of trust and indeed an abuse of power’. The same judge previously ruled the Dubai ruler had held two of his adult daughters captive after they attempted to escape his clutches.
His findings threatened to embarrass the Government, which last month announced a new ‘partnership for the future’ with the UAE, involving billions of pounds of trade and investment.
Trade between Britain and the UAE is already worth around £12billion a year, and ministers have been reluctant to comment on the High Court ruling. Liberal Democrat justice spokesman Wera Hobhouse said: ‘The Government can’t stay silent on this issue any longer. We need an urgent investigation into what exactly happened and how this scandalous act of phone hacking has been allowed to take place.’
Scotland Yard and the National Crime Agency have been informed of the hacking. Detectives launched a five-month investigation but the inquiry was shut down in February. The force said it would review any new information or evidence.
Baroness Shackleton is believed to have been targeted because she was representing Princess Haya, 47, in her custody case against the sheikh. Oxford-educated Haya told the High Court she was ‘terrified’ of her ex-husband and fled Dubai because she feared for her life and the safety of their two children.
Her phone – and handsets belonging to her lawyers, her PA and her security officers – were targeted after she took refuge in Britain, in an £85million mansion near Kensington Palace.
Baroness Shackleton was alerted to the hacking by lawyer Cherie Blair in August last year. Mrs Blair worked as an adviser to the Israeli firm which licensed the spyware. Sheikh Mohammed has repeatedly denied the hacking allegations.