Dubai's ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum ordered the abduction of two of his daughters and orchestrated a campaign of intimidation against his former wife, a British judge has ruled.
Judge Andrew McFarlane said he accepted as proved a series of allegations made by Mohammed's former wife, Princess Haya bint al-Hussein, 45, half-sister of Jordan's King Abdullah, during a custody battle over their two children at London's High Court.
These included that Mohammed arranged for his daughter Shamsa, then aged 18, to be kidnapped off the streets of Cambridge in central England in 2000, and had her flown back to Dubai where she remains in captivity.
He also arranged for Shamsa's younger sister Latifa to be snatched from a boat in international waters off India by Indian forces in 2018 and returned to the emirate.
In the judgements published on Thursday, McFarlane, President of the Family Court division in England and Wales, also accepted that the sheikh subjected Haya to a campaign of intimidation which put her in fear of her life.
His conclusions could only be reported after restrictions were lifted on Thursday after the UK Supreme Court earlier rejected Mohammed's request for permission to appeal against their publication.
