Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum “ordered and orchestrated” the kidnapping of his daughter Princess Latifa, 34, two years ago after she fled the emirate he rules, according to a judgement by the UK High Court in March. Yet despite worldwide publicity and her plight being featured in an award-winning BBC documentary – Escape from Dubai: The Mystery of a Missing Princess – she is still being held against her will in her homeland. She has not been seen in public since the luxury yacht she was staying on with a friend was stormed by commandos in the Indian Ocean in March 2018. The UN’s Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID) has backed a complaint by the Free Latifa campaign, who had called on it to intervene in the case.

First Princess Latifa tried to flee by boat and almost made it to India—before being sent back. Then Princess Haya, Sheikh Mohammed’s “public wife,” refused to return from England. Now the sheikh is battling her in court over their children. Amid the fine horses competing in this year’s Royal Ascot, the red-coated postilions driving the Queen of England in her carriage, and the rabble in immense grandstands, one man stands in the event’s most exclusive VIP area wearing a black silk hat. Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, the leader of Dubai, more often wears the traditional headscarf and white robe, or kandura, of Dubai, one of the seven states that make up the United Arab Emirates—but for the most important race of the season, he makes an exception.