Author: peter

  • Polo club urged to cut ties with sheikh over ‘hacking’

    Polo club urged to cut ties with sheikh over ‘hacking’

    An exclusive club closely associated with the royal family has been urged to sever its links with the ruler of Dubai after a judge found he had orchestrated the hacking of mobile phones. The Guards Polo Club was founded by the Duke of Edinburgh in 1955 and Princes Charles, William and Harry have all played…

  • Dubai ruler’s ‘campaign of fear and intimidation’ against Princess Haya

    Dubai ruler’s ‘campaign of fear and intimidation’ against Princess Haya

    Findings of UK high court judge have repercussions beyond the Gulf state. So bad were relations between Princess Haya and her estranged husband Dubai’s billionaire ruler that she felt “hunted all the time” and that there was “nowhere for me to go to be safe”, even in the UK, where she had built a new…

  • Sheikh Mohammed: Reopen ‘hacking’ case, Met urged

    Sheikh Mohammed: Reopen ‘hacking’ case, Met urged

    Scotland Yard faces growing pressure to reopen an investigation into alleged phone hacking by the ruler of Dubai. Detectives closed the inquiry eight months before a High Court ruling was made public on Wednesday. It found that Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum had orchestrated a sophisticated spyware attack. The Crown Prosecution Service said yesterday that it…

  • Cherie Blair is adviser to NSO, the firm behind Pegasus spyware

    Cherie Blair is adviser to NSO, the firm behind Pegasus spyware

    Cherie Blair faces scrutiny about her work for a secretive company behind a spyware system despite exposing its use in the hacking of a Conservative peer. The wife of Tony Blair, the former Labour leader, is an ethics adviser to NSO, the Israeli intelligence company behind Pegasus spyware. She called Baroness Shackleton of Belgravia in…

  • The Times view on Sheikh Mohammed and our ties with the UAE: Questionable Allies

    The Times view on Sheikh Mohammed and our ties with the UAE: Questionable Allies

    Dubai’s ruler faces a criminal investigation over the hacking of a Tory peer’s phone. British judge’s conclusion that Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum used sophisticated spyware to hack the phone of his estranged wife’s lawyer will only deepen the acrimony in what was already a bitter custody battle. But the news that Dubai’s ruler now…

  • Sheikh Mohammed hacked Baroness Shackleton’s mobile phone, rules judge

    Sheikh Mohammed hacked Baroness Shackleton’s mobile phone, rules judge

    The government was urged last night to review its diplomatic relationship with one of its closest Middle East allies after a judge implicated its ruler in the hacking of a Tory peer’s mobile phone. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum of Dubai, a member of the Queen’s racing circle, faces a renewed police investigation into the…

  • Sheikh Set Israeli Spyware on Ex-Wife in Custody Battle, Court Says

    Sheikh Set Israeli Spyware on Ex-Wife in Custody Battle, Court Says

    The ruler of Dubai was found to have hacked the phones of his former wife, a Jordanian princess, and of her lawyers. One of those targeted is a member of the House of Lords in Britain. When the hyper-wealthy ruler of the Middle Eastern emirate of Dubai found himself embroiled in a British court case…

  • Dubai’s billionaire ruler targeted ex-wife with NSO’s Pegasus spyware

    Dubai’s billionaire ruler targeted ex-wife with NSO’s Pegasus spyware

    Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, the billionaire ruler of Dubai, targeted the phone of his estranged wife Princess Haya with a military-grade spyware tool during a London court battle over their two children, a High Court judge has found. Sheikh Mohammed permitted his “servants or agents” to use an Israeli manufactured and commercially sold covert…

  • ‘Latifa isn’t free — she’s just in a bigger prison than before’

    ‘Latifa isn’t free — she’s just in a bigger prison than before’

    The ex-wife of Dubai’s leader has reason to doubt the tale of his prodigal daughter — she too was held captive by him, she claims. Reclining by a window in her hilltop residence outside Beirut, Randa al-Banna took a puff of her slim cigarette and looked out over the Mediterranean. The former wife of Sheikh…

  • The Runaway Princesses of Dubai

    The Runaway Princesses of Dubai

    Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum of Dubai rules one of the world’s richest city-states–and prides himself on being progressive. So why do women from his family keep fleeing? The Royal Courts of Justice, a massive Victorian Gothic structure on the Strand in the heart of London built in the 1870s, is not typically the…