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The Derby, the Sheikh and the Missing Princess (Or: How Human Rights Became the Talk of a Horse Race)
The ruler of Dubai has spent a fortune pursuing Kentucky glory. In Essential Quality, Saturday’s favorite, he has his best chance—but it comes at his ugliest moment. The select yearling sale at Keeneland Race Course in Lexington, Ky., is where the world’s big players converge each year to throw staggering sums of money at thoroughbred…
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Interview: ‘They told me they could do anything they wanted with me’ — Princess Latifa’s friend speaks out about trying to escape Dubai with the princess and the Irish connection
The last time Tiina Jauhiainen saw her close friend Princess Latifa of Dubai, she was being dragged away kicking and screaming by armed commandos from a boat off the Indian coast. Latifa and Tiina had mounted a daring escape from the gulf state in February 2018 after the princess had her freedom heavily restricted by…
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Stark light shone on Latifa’s father, a big player in Irish horse racing
The woman who helped Princess Latifa in her attempt to escape from Dubai has called on Irish horseracing authorities to ban Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum from the sport. Princess Latifa’s friend Tiina Jauhiainen said it is time for Irish racing to take a stand on the ruler of the gulf state over his…
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Abducted, kidnapped, escaped: the ugly tale of Dubai’s princesses
It’s the stuff of a dark fairy story: imprisoned daughters, a runaway bride and an overbearing father. Recent headlines about the family of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum have sent shockwaves around the world – and there’s no happy ending in sight. Martin Fletcher investigates. As a child Marcus Essabri used to play with his…
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Robinson’s evidence ‘critical in the fight to free Latifa’
A lawyer and friend of missing Princess Latifa of Dubai says former president Mary Robinson has vowed to “help in the campaign to free her” and has a “critical and key” role to play. The captive daughter of Dubai’s ruler, who is reportedly being held hostage by her father, was previously described by Mrs Robinson…
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The tourists who flock to Dubai seem happy to overlook a few missing princesses
How many abducted and imprisoned princesses would it take for British tourists to turn their backs on Dubai? Three? Four? Ten? Because two “disappeared” princesses doesn’t look like being enough, even now that a secretly filmed account by one of them, saying she had been captured, assaulted, drugged and repatriated, has appeared on the BBC…
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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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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…
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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…