Video: Missing Dubai Princess Says She Is Being Held 'Hostage'

Missing Dubai Princess Latifa held hostage? Emirati princess Sheikha Latifa, who went missing off the Goa coast in 2018, has recently recorded a video claiming that she is being held against her will in a barricaded villa. Latifa is one of the daughters of Dubai's ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum.

Latifa tried to flee the country in 2018 only to be detained by commandos in a boat in India. She later sent secret video messages to friends accusing her father of abduction, and saying that she feared for her life. After her video went viral that year, she has re-emerged in new videos that surfaced on Tuesday. In one video, she can be seen saying that she doesn't know if she's “going to survive this situation.”

"The situation is getting more desperate every day"

Secret messages, sent by Dubai’s Princess Latifa Al Maktoum, reveal details of how she has been held in captivity, after a failed attempt to leave Dubai in 2018#MissingPrincess @BBCPanoramahttps://t.co/58qW4SHDAw pic.twitter.com/ILJseDc1JL

— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) February 16, 2021

The videos were released by BBC as a part of an episode of “Panorama” investigative series. In them, Princess Latifa Al Maktoum says that she is at a “jail villa,” reportedly located in the city-state in the United Arab Emirates. Her father, Sheikh Mohammed, also serves as the prime minister and vice president of the UAE.

“I'm a hostage,” Latifa, 35, says in one new video broadcast by BBC. "This villa has been converted into jail. I can't even go outside to get any fresh air,” she further says.

All the windows are barred shut, I can't open any window: Missing Dubai princess being held hostage?

According to the report, Latifa made the videos in a bathroom on a phone she secretly received about a year after her capture. She has been recording for over months. “I don't know when I'll be released and what the conditions will be like when I'm released,” she says, adding, “Every day I am worried about my safety and my life.”

Last March, a London High Court judge ruled that al-Maktoum did abduct his daughters and threatened his former wife Princess Haya. This came following 45-year-old Princess Haya bint al-Hussein's allegations regarding the same during a legal battle for the custody of the couple's children.

Feature Image Credit: NDTV