LONDON (Reuters) – Britain said on Wednesday that it would like to see proof that Sheikha Latifa, one of the ruler of Dubai’s daughters, is still alive after the BBC published a “deeply troubling” video saying she was being held against her will in a barricaded villa.
Asked if he would support seeing some kind of proof from the United Arab Emirates that Sheikha Latifa was alive, British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab told Sky News television: “Given what we’ve just seen, I think people would just at a human level want to see that she’s alive and well, of course, I think that’s a natural instinct and we would certainly welcome that.”
Raab told the BBC that the video was “deeply troubling”, that Britain was concerned about it and that the United Nations would be following up on the video.
Reuters could not independently verify when or where the video was recorded.
Sheikha Latifa bint Mohammed al-Maktoum drew international attention in 2018 when a human rights group released a video made by her in which she described an attempt to escape Dubai.
Last March, a London High Court judge said he accepted as proved a series of allegations made by Dubai ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum’s former wife, Princess Haya, in a legal battle, including that the sheikh ordered the abduction of Latifa. The sheikh’s lawyers rejected the allegations.
(Reporting by Sarah Young and Paul Sandle; Editing by Guy Faulconbridge and Alex Richardson)
