Please help set my friend free, Your Majesty
Letter begs Queen to rescue princess from Dubai ‘jail’
THE BEST friend of Dubai’s missing Princess Latifa today makes a personal plea to the Queen to intervene.
In an open letter in The Mail on Sunday, Tiina Jauhiainen pleads with the Monarch to use ‘whatever influence’ she has with her long-term horse-racing friend Sheikh Mohammed al-Maktoum, who is accused of holding his daughter captive.
Princess Latifa has not been seen in public since 2018 when she was allegedly drugged and forced back to Dubai following a failed escape bid with Ms Jauhiainen.
Disturbing footage last week emerged of the 35-year-old royal in which she said she was being kept in solitary confinement inside a ‘villa-jail’ and feared for her life.
‘You value justice, freedom and family’
The videos, released by Ms Jauhiainen and human rights lawyer David Haigh, are believed to have been made in 2019. Her friends have had no contact with her since last summer. The case has echoes of that of her older sister Shamsa, who was abducted from Cambridge in 2000 when she was 18 and has not been seen since.
In her letter, Ms Jauhiainen writes: ‘I am humbly calling upon you to use whatever influence you have with your friend, Sheikh Mohammed, to persuade him to grant Latifa
and her older sister Shamsa their wish for freedom or, at least, to supply proof they are still alive.
‘Your country has a proud record on human rights and of holding people, however rich and powerful, to account for their actions.
‘Given you so obviously value justice, freedom and family and that you command universal respect, I truly believe your intervention could help bring the ordeal of these two women to an end.’
The Dubai ruler has a vast UK asset portfolio, including a £75million Surrey retreat, a Suffolk mansion and a 63,000-acre Wester Ross estate. He also founded the Godolphin stables in Newmarket and it is his passion for racing that connects him to the Queen. The pair have been pictured together numerous times at the Royal Windsor Horse Show and at Ascot.
It was, however, reported last year that the Queen will now decline to be photographed with Sheikh Mohammed following a High Court ruling that found him responsible for the abduction of his two daughters as well as a campaign of intimidation against his youngest wife Princess Haya.
In a further bid to apply pressure on the Sheikh to release the princesses, campaigners want Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab to apply financial sanctions on his UK holdings. Latifa’s friends are being advised on financial sanctions by
Bill Browder, a businessman who masterminded the Magnitsky Act to punish human rights violators by way of asset freezes and visa bans.
‘Sheikh Mohammed’s financial life would be over if he was added to the Magnitsky List,’ said Mr Browder. ‘It would make him an international financial pariah.’
Mr Raab described the footage of Princess Latifa as ‘very distressing’ and has called on Dubai to provide proof she is still alive.
Ms Jauhiainen has been friends with Latifa since 2010, when she was hired by the family as a martial arts instructor. In 2018, she was crucial to the royal’s bid for freedom and they crossed into Oman and set sail across the Arabian Sea. Their boat was stormed by commandos off the coast of India and the pair returned to Dubai with Ms Jauhiainen eventually released.
After the UN last week demanded proof of Latifa’s safety, the royal ruling family issued a statement claiming she was ‘being cared for at home’ although no proof of life was provided.