Missing Dubai princess Latifa says she is a hostage

For three years, the world has heard nothing from Princess Latifa, a daughter of one of the world's richest men, Dubai's billionaire ruler Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum. She has re-emerged in new videos on Tuesday, saying she doesn't know if she's “going to survive this situation.” The videos released by the BBC show Sheikha Latifa bint Mohammed Al Maktoum at a “jail villa,” apparently located in the skyscraper-studded city-state in the United Arab Emirates. Her father, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, also serves as the prime minister and vice president in the hereditarily ruled UAE.

“I'm a hostage,” the sheikha says in one video. "This villa has been converted into jail.“I can't even go outside to get any fresh air,” she also said.The government's Dubai Media Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press. The BBC said Sheikha Latifa recorded the videos in a bathroom at the villa over months on a phone she secretly received about a year after her capture.“I don't know when I'll be released and what the conditions will be like when I'm released,” she says in a video. “Every day I am worried about my safety and my life.”

Sheikh Mohammed's family life again became a public matter in 2020. Then, a British judge ruled the sheikh had conducted a campaign of fear and intimidation against his estranged wife and ordered the abduction of two of his daughters, one of them Sheikha Latifa. The ruling came in a custody battle between Sheikh Mohammed and estranged wife Princess Haya, daughter of the late King Hussein of Jordan