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Princess Haya ‘blackmailed’ out of £7m by security team she paid to keep quiet about affair with British bodyguard
Princess Haya was “blackmailed” out of £7 million by four members of her security team whom she paid to keep quiet about an affair she had with her British bodyguard, court documents reveal.
The revelation emerged as details of Britain’s most expensive divorce between the Jordanian princess and Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum were made public after The Telegraph and other media won the right to report the case.
The 72-year-old sheikh, worth nearly £10 billion, has been ordered to pay a record £554.5 million to his ex-wife, 47, for the security, maintenance and education fees for their children.
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Dubai’s ruler Sheikh Mohammed ordered to pay Princess Haya £554m in divorce settlement
Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, the billionaire ruler of Dubai, must pay about £554m in child maintenance and security costs to his estranged wife Princess Haya and their two children, in what is believed to be the largest post-divorce financial settlement awarded by an English court.
Mr Justice Moor said on Tuesday the Dubai ruler must pay a lump sum of £251.5m in three months, which will include the cost of the princess’s security for her lifetime. He must also provide a £290m HSBC bank guarantee underpinning an annual £11m maintenance payment, as well as ongoing security costs for the two children as adults, £3m to cover their education and £9.6m in maintenance arrears.
The High Court case has given a rare glimpse into the world of the Gulf elite and their staggering wealth, which the judge said in his ruling was “a truly opulent and unprecedented standard of living”.
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Princess Haya divorce: the sheikh and the £75m horse war
Kevin Manning was wearing the green and black silks of Princess Haya Bint al-Hussein when he rode New Approach to win the 2008 Epsom Derby.
The victory was another triumph for the princess who, with her husband Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, was one of the most powerful figures in British equestrianism and a member of the Queen’s racing circle.
It has now emerged that Haya demanded £75 million in compensation from Mohammed, the ruler of Dubai, accusing him of seizing 62 of her racehorses and 21 showjumpers during their bitter divorce.
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Dubai’s Princess Haya wins record £554m divorce settlement
The ruler of Dubai has been ordered to pay his youngest wife and their two children a record £554 million settlement after a bitter divorce.
Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, 72, was found to pose a serious security risk to his former wife Princess Haya Bint al-Hussein, 47, the sister of King Abdullah II of Jordan. She fled to London in fear for her life in 2019 with their two children — Jalila, now 14, and Zayed, nine — after her husband discovered she was having an affair with her male bodyguard.
It emerged today that the princess was blackmailed for £6.7 million by her lover, a married former British soldier employed as her close protection officer, and other members of her security team who threatened to reveal the affair.
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Dubai ruler’s ex-security chief sues for unfair dismissal: Powerlifitng former Marine accuses UK firm of favouritism after it let him go but kept guards on with less experience under Covid cuts
Dubai ruler Sheikh Mohammed Al Maktoum’s former security manager who was in charge after the sheikh’s wife had a two-year affair with another bodyguard is fighting an unfair dismissal battle.
Mark Bromilow, 41, who served in the Royal Marines and is a former world powerlifting champion is claiming that he was wrongly picked for redundancy due to a flawed process.
He has alleged that favouritism was shown to other guards who kept their jobs even though they had less experience than him.
Mr Bromilow became a team leader in 2016 and was later promoted to lead a dozen close protection officers guarding Sheikh Mohammed Al Maktoum and his family at his UK base in Newmarket, Suffolk.
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In Letter from Tihar, Christian Michel Asks UK PM to Sanction Modi for UAE Princess’s Abduction
The UK national, who has spent three years in jail awaiting trial in the AgustaWestland case, says the Modi government helped the UAE abduct Princess Latifa in 2018 so that it could get him in exchange.
The British national Christian James Michel, accused in the Rs 3,600 crore AgustaWestland VVIP chopper deal and now into his third year as an undertrial prisoner, has threatened to go on an indefinite hunger strike in Delhi’s Tihar jail from today, November 25, if charges of human rights violations are not brought against Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
In a nine-page handwritten letter to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson dated October 5 but made public only now, Michel has accused Modi of being responsible for the abduction of Princess Latifa in 2018 following an attack on the yacht she was travelling in on the high seas by Indian special forces. Michel has claimed that he was handed over to India by the United Arab Emirates’ authorities in exchange for Latifa, the estranged and runaway daughter of the ruler of Dubai.
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The Real Housewives comes to Dubai
The blingy TV franchise is coming to the emirate with a reputation for extreme luxury. It might be an awkward marriage.
“Life is different in a gated community.” In the 15 years since The Real Housewives of Orange County first buttonholed its loyal, tinsel-hungry audience with this magnificently F Scott Fitzgeraldian opening line, the Real Housewives reality TV franchise has laid its scene in extravagantly upholstered enclaves from Athens to Johannesburg. Even Cheshire.
Until now, though, none of the show’s international iterations has been hand-crafted by the team behind the American mothership. Rather they have been farmed out to foreign caretakers like so many of its cast members’ designer-clad children, or brazenly counterfeited like an alleyway Birkin bag.
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Judge calls for radical action to end secrecy of family courts
A senior judge has called for an end to secrecy in family cases in the biggest overhaul of court reporting in 60 years.
Sir Andrew McFarlane’s plan would create a presumption of “openness and transparency” in all family court cases, meaning, for example, that financial information in high-profile divorces could be made public.
McFarlane, 67, president of the High Court family division, said reforms in 2009 to encourage greater reporting of family courts had failed and that more radical action was needed.
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Sheikh Mohammed and Princess Haya’s historic divorce proceedings are underway
The High Court recently found that Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum ordered the hacking of the phones of his ex-wife and her lawyers, amid their acrimonious split.
Earlier this month, news broke that Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Prime Minister and Vice President of the UAE, ordered the use of spyware to tap the phones of his ex-wife, Princess Haya bint Hussein of Jordan, and her lawyers, according to the findings of London’s High Court. Now, legal proceedings relating to their divorce are officially underway, as the 47-year-old princess seeks a settlement following the breakdown of their marriage.
The legal action, which the Times dubs the ‘biggest divorce case in British legal history’, officially began on Wednesday 27 October. It will see Princess Haya (the daughter of former King Hussein of Jordan and his third wife, Queen Alia, and the half-sister of the current King Abdullah II), push for a share of the 72-year-old ruler of Dubai’s fortune.
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The legal battle between Princess Haya and Sheikh Mohammed
Ten-day hearing is expected to lead to largest divorce payout in British legal history.
Jordan’s Princess Haya has launched her court bid to claim what experts predict may be a record-breaking divorce settlement from her estranged billionaire husband, Dubai ruler Sheikh Mohammed.
The ten-day High Court hearing, which began yesterday, “is the biggest divorce case in British legal history”, according to The Times.
Although details of the hearing are currently under wraps, the payout for the princess and her two children by the 72-year-old sheikh “could surpass the record £450m awarded in 2017 to Tatiana Akhmedova”, the former wife of Russian billionaire Farkhad Akhmedov, said the paper.