The ruler of Dubai has been branded a domestic abuser behind a reign of terror against his ex-wife as a High Court judge banned him from bringing up his children.
Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, 72, orchestrated a campaign of intimidation and harassment against Princess Haya bint Al Hussein, 47, when their 15-year marriage broke down and she fled to Britain with their son and daughter.
During a bitter three-year legal battle in London, the princess revealed how she lives in constant fear of her children being abducted while fighting her ex-husband’s attempts to “crush me”.
Agents for the sheikh hacked the phones of the princess and her lawyers during their court battle, he attempted to buy land around her countryside home and a judge concluded that the Middle East power broker had in the past kidnapped and imprisoned members of his family who tried to defy him.
In a damning judgment to end the legal saga, Sir Andrew McFarlane, president of the Family Division, ruled that the sheikh must be blocked from involvement in the upbringing of his children, Sheikha Jalila, 14, and Sheikh Zayed, 10, in a bid to end his “coercive control” over his ex-wife.
“The father’s behaviour towards the mother of his children is domestic abuse,” concluded the senior judge.
“The father has consistently displayed coercive and controlling behaviour with respect to those members of his family who he regards as behaving contrary to his will. Given his immense power and wealth, the potential for the father, and those in Dubai who do his bidding, to act remorselessly against the interests of the mother has been proved.”
In December last year, the Sheikh —who denies all allegations of wrongdoing — was ordered to pay a record £550 million divorce settlement, including the provision of military-grade security to protect the princess from the threat he himself poses.
Accepting that the princess must have sole control of her children’s schooling and medical needs, the judge condemned the sheikh’s “remorseless and unremitting behaviour”. Sheikh Mohammed, a personal friend of the royal family and powerful figure in international racing circles, launched the legal battle when, in April 2019, Princess Haya, his sixth wife, fled Dubai with their children.
Sir Andrew concluded that the prime minister of the United Arab Emirates was behind the 2000 abduction in Cambridge of his daughter, Sheikha Shamsa, and he also thwarted the attempt of another daughter, Sheikha Latifa, to flee Dubai in 2002.
Latifa was held captive for more than three years, the court found, and her second escape attempt in 2018 ended when Indian special forces stormed a yacht and took her back to her father.
Princess Haya said she felt “hunted and haunted” in the wake of her marital breakdown, telling the court in July 2020: “I continue to be utterly terrified by the power that Sheikh Mohammed wields, the risks he (and those around him) continue to pose and the pressure that he seeks to place upon me.”
The judge said he lamented the damage done to the children through the suffering of their mother. “The father has acted in a wholly coercive and controlling manner towards the children’s mother to a degree which can only be seen by her to be all consuming and all encompassing,” he said.
“For the children’s mother to be rendered thus, can only have been most harmful to the emotional and psychological welfare of these two children.”
Sheikh Mohammed wanted direct contact with the children during much of the court proceedings, but withdrew the request on December 1, 2021, three weeks before the judge made his final ruling.
While Princess Haya, the Oxford-educated daughter of King Hussein of Jordan, accepted the sheikh’s genuine love for his children, he refused to acknowledge her efforts to protect their upbringing. Although banned from seeing the children in person, he is permitted phone calls. But the judge chastised him for not doing enough to “build bridges”.
Sir Andrew took the unusual step of publishing the ruling to stop the sheikh constructing a “false narrative” about what the court had decided.
