Ruling backs Princess Haya’s claim that husband Sheikh Mohammed intimidated her

Can Sheikh Mohammed’s reputation survive?

The ruler of Dubai orchestrated the abductions of two of his children – one from the streets of Cambridge – and subjected his youngest wife to a campaign of “intimidation”, a damning UK family court judgment has found.

In findings that risk destabilising diplomatic relations with the United Arab Emirates, a close Gulf ally of Britain, the actions of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum were described by the judge as behaviour which, on the balance of probabilities, amounted to potentially breaking English and international law.

The Guardian and other news organisations can reveal the ruling following months of private hearings and a legal dispute that reached the supreme court. It details an extraordinary family saga spanning 20 years during which the sheikh, 70, organised international kidnappings, imprisoned two of his daughters and “deprived [them] of their liberty”.

Much of the 34-page fact-finding ruling by Sir Andrew McFarlane, president of the family division of the high court in England and Wales, records the events surrounding the notorious disappearances of Princess Shamsa from Cambridge in 2000, when she was 19, and of Princess Latifa, who was seized by Indian army commandos from the Indian Ocean in 2018, when she was 32, before being forcibly returned to Dubai.