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Justine McCarthy: Mary Robinson must lead on search for missing Princess Latifa
For those of us who celebrated Mary Robinson’s election as Ireland’s first woman president in 1990 the vapour trails of euphoria lingered long after she had left Aras an Uachtarain seven years later. She was a feminist who did not just talk the talk; she had walked the walk to Leinster House and the Four…
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Help to free my sister, Dubai princess begs British police
The missing Dubai princess has appealed to British police to reinvestigate the fate of an older sister who disappeared in Cambridge two decades ago, according to a smuggled letter. Princess Latifa, 35, who says that she is being held captive by her family, said that police could help to free Princess Shamsa, 39. The older sister ran…
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Letters: Robinson’s lunch with Princess Latifa is too much to swallow
Justine McCarthy is right to take to task former president Mary Robinson for her lunch with Princess Latifa, daughter and prisoner of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, billionaire ruler of Dubai (“Why I feel let down by Mary Robinson”, Comment, last week). In March 2018, Princess Latifa recorded a heart-rending video detailing her life of…
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Princess Latifa bint Mohammed al-Maktoum seized in exchange for arms dealer
The daughter of the ruler of Dubai was seized by Indian commandos as part of a deal to extradite a British arms dealer, a United Nations panel has ruled. Princess Latifa bint Mohammed al-Maktoum was captured on a yacht off the coast of Goa as she attempted to escape her father in March 2018, then drugged…
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Emirati princess calls for new probe to find sister who vanished 21 years ago
Emirati princess Latifa Al Maktoum has urged police in the UK to reinvestigate the disappearance of her older sister, Princess Shamsa. Princess Latifa, who says she has been held captive in a “villa jail” in Dubai by her father Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum since an attempt to flee in 2018, said Shamsa was…
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UAE: Princess Latifa asks UK police to reopen case into sister Shamsa’s kidnapping
Dubai’s Princess Latifa has urged British police to reopen its case into the kidnapping of her sister Shamsa by her father, Dubai ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, according to a letter shared with the BBC. In a handwritten letter given to Cambridgeshire police on Wednesday, Latifa, who last week appeared in footage describing herself as a “hostage”…
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The Middle East’s Progressive Darling Abuses Its Women
In a series of recently released videos, Latifa Al Maktoum, a Dubai princess who was missing for more than a year, recounted her harrowing capture by around a dozen commandos who raided a boat she was sailing 30 miles off the coast of India. After a struggle, one tranquilized her, and she fell unconscious. The…
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Godolphin stables Sheik ‘should be banned from Melbourne Cup and Everests’, activists demand
The ruler of Dubai should not be allowed to race in the Melbourne Cup or Sydney’s Everest after his daughter claimed she was being kept hostage, human rights activists say. Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, Dubai’s Prime Minister and owner of Godolphin stables, has been under pressure since his daughter Princess Latifa smuggled out a…
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Elaine Byrne: Robinson should have known better on the plight of Princess Latifa
“As a woman, I want women who have felt themselves outside history to be written back into history.” So said Mary Robinson in her famous “Mná na hÉireann” speech in 1990, when she became Ireland’s first female president. That historic speech is very much at odds with Robinson’s extraordinary lack of curiosity around the wellbeing…
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Gangsters’ paradise – Dubai’s finely spun web starts to unravel
His finely spun web has entangled the former Irish president, Mary Robinson, his estranged wife Princess Haya and the blue-bloods of the Irish Turf who tapped him for more than €5m for the redevelopment of the Curragh Racecourse. Dubai, his middle-eastern emirate, also harbours Christy Kinahan, head of the notorious drugs cartel. And it is…