The sixth wife of the ruler of Dubai has fled to London, reports say.
By World Israel News Staff
Princess Haya Bint al-Hussein, sixth wife of Sheikh Mohammed Al Maktoum, has reportedly fled the United Arab Emirates for London where she is “afraid for her life,” Fox News reports on Wednesday.
The sheikh, 69, is the ruler of Dubai, one of the seven emirates that make up the U.A.E. He married Princess Haya in 2004. She is the daughter of King Hussein of Jordan.
According to The Telegraph, it’s not clear why she left, but evidence points to the relationship with the sheikh turning south amid suspected infidelity.
Fox News reports that the sheikh posted a poem he wrote on Instagram on June 22 in Arabic titled “You Lived and You Died,” and told the princess to return to “who you have been busy with.”
“Your days of lying are over and it doesn’t matter what we were and what you are. You no longer have any place with me. Go to who you have been busy with! I don’t care if you live or you die,” he wrote.
The Telegraph reports that Princess Haya is fighting a legal battle with the sheikh in the High Court’s Family Division, which deals with marriage and custody, and is said to be staying at at her £85 million townhouse in Kensington Palace Gardens.
The British paper notes that another member of Dubai’s royal family, Princess Latifa, a child of Sheikh Mohammed, reportedly made an escape from the U.A.E. in February 2018. She said she had been held prisoner by her father.
The Telegraph quotes Radha Stirling, CEO of Detained in Dubai, who said: “The bias and discrimination women in the Gulf generally suffer is only amplified when they are members of the ruling family and come into conflict with the men in their lives, because they have even less recourse than an average woman.”
“The UAE is a male-dominated society, and Princess Haya’s husband, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, wields absolute power over Dubai,” she said, according to The Telegraph.