WEBVTT - The Sheika Kept Prisoner (with Heidi Blake) 0:00:00.720 --> 0:00:05.040 Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm 0:00:05.120 --> 0:00:13.160 and Mild from aarin Manki listener Discretion advised. Curled inside 0:00:13.320 --> 0:00:17.479 the empty spare tire compartment inside the trunk of an Audi, 0:00:18.000 --> 0:00:22.919 beneath several blue bags of heavy Ikia furniture, a thirty 0:00:22.960 --> 0:00:27.680 two year old woman named Litifa held her breath. She 0:00:27.840 --> 0:00:31.560 was attempting to sneak across the border from the United 0:00:31.600 --> 0:00:36.080 Arab Emirates to Oman, where hopefully she would make it 0:00:36.159 --> 0:00:39.720 onto the boat that would bring her to international waters, 0:00:39.800 --> 0:00:45.040 where she hoped she would be free. Litifah's full name 0:00:45.280 --> 0:00:49.559 was Sheikha Latifah bint Muhammad bin Rashid al Muktum, and 0:00:49.680 --> 0:00:53.400 she was the daughter of the ruling Emir of Dubai, 0:00:53.720 --> 0:00:59.520 Sheikh Mohammed. For years, Latifah had been studying and cultivating 0:00:59.640 --> 0:01:05.000 relatelationships with people who could help her escape her repressive home. 0:01:05.720 --> 0:01:09.440 She even trained in extreme sports so that she would 0:01:09.480 --> 0:01:13.039 be ready for whatever she needed to do. That was 0:01:13.080 --> 0:01:17.240 how Latifah had met a woman named Tina Yahayanen, a 0:01:17.280 --> 0:01:22.640 Finnish woman living in Dubai, who gave Latifah private capuera lessons. 0:01:23.319 --> 0:01:26.959 Tina was the one driving the Audi across the border. 0:01:27.600 --> 0:01:31.360 She would stay with Latifa every step on the journey 0:01:31.360 --> 0:01:35.679 to freedom. Thankfully, a guard waved the car across the 0:01:35.720 --> 0:01:39.479 border into Oman without looking in the spare tire compartment. 0:01:40.280 --> 0:01:43.880 But the journey was far from over. Latifa had made 0:01:44.040 --> 0:01:48.640 arrangements for a yacht that could bring them to India, where, hopefully, 0:01:48.800 --> 0:01:52.400 with the help of a fake passport, she could fly 0:01:52.600 --> 0:01:56.680 to the United States and claim asylum. But first she 0:01:56.760 --> 0:02:00.559 needed to get sixteen miles off shore to meet the yacht. 0:02:01.560 --> 0:02:04.760 There was another contact who gave Latifa and Tina a 0:02:04.880 --> 0:02:08.760 ride in his dinghy, and though a storm pressed toward 0:02:08.840 --> 0:02:12.080 them on the horizon and locals warned the man not 0:02:12.280 --> 0:02:15.720 to go out in his small boat, Latifa had come 0:02:15.960 --> 0:02:20.440 too far to turn back. Their tiny boat pressed forward 0:02:20.520 --> 0:02:24.320 through violent waves, but still it couldn't make it all 0:02:24.400 --> 0:02:28.760 the way to the yacht, and so Latifah's next contact, 0:02:28.960 --> 0:02:33.680 a former French naval officer who had once escaped Dubai himself, 0:02:33.760 --> 0:02:37.360 where he was charged with embezzlement, rowed from the yacht 0:02:37.400 --> 0:02:40.960 with another crew member to the dinghy on jet skis. 0:02:41.600 --> 0:02:45.720 Latifa and Tina both fell into the water several times, 0:02:46.040 --> 0:02:49.280 but eventually they managed to make it onto the back 0:02:49.320 --> 0:02:52.880 of the jet skis and then safely to the yacht. 0:02:53.919 --> 0:02:57.799 The yacht was filthy and teeming with cockroaches, but they 0:02:57.840 --> 0:03:03.240 were finally in international waters, and when Latifah slept on 0:03:03.320 --> 0:03:07.840 the deck, she could see the stars. But freedom wouldn't 0:03:07.919 --> 0:03:12.120 last long. They noticed a ship was trailing them when 0:03:12.120 --> 0:03:14.920 they were about thirty miles off the coast of India. 0:03:15.680 --> 0:03:20.160 The next night, Latifa heard gunshots and boots on the deck. 0:03:21.000 --> 0:03:26.440 Commandos tied Latifa up and injected her with tranquilizers before 0:03:26.520 --> 0:03:30.040 flying her back to the place She had already risked 0:03:30.120 --> 0:03:34.160 everything to try to escape. But that wouldn't be the 0:03:34.320 --> 0:03:38.320 end of Latifah's story. She had already risked everything to 0:03:38.360 --> 0:03:41.840 try to get away, and now she wanted the world 0:03:42.040 --> 0:03:46.880 to know what she was going through. Latifa's escape attempt 0:03:47.080 --> 0:03:51.720 and its aftermath received international attention when it occurred in 0:03:51.760 --> 0:03:55.880 twenty eighteen. I'm thrilled to be talking with New Yorker 0:03:55.920 --> 0:03:59.280 staff writer Heidi Blake, who wrote about Latifah and an 0:03:59.360 --> 0:04:03.360 incredible article in May of twenty twenty three, and who's 0:04:03.440 --> 0:04:07.120 revisited the story and the story of other royal women 0:04:07.160 --> 0:04:11.200 who have attempted to escape the restrictive lives they were 0:04:11.200 --> 0:04:15.000 born into in the UAE. For The New Yorker's narrative 0:04:15.080 --> 0:04:21.240 podcast series The Runaway Princesses. I'm Dana Schwartz and this 0:04:21.720 --> 0:04:23.800 is Noble Blood. 0:04:24.760 --> 0:04:26.479 Heidi. Thank you so much for being here. 0:04:26.720 --> 0:04:27.840 Thank you so much for having me. 0:04:28.240 --> 0:04:30.799 I thought your piece last spring in The New Yorker 0:04:30.960 --> 0:04:35.279 was just so extraordinary, and you've continued writing about Latifa 0:04:35.279 --> 0:04:38.040 and the women like her. But before we get into 0:04:38.480 --> 0:04:42.240 Latifah's twenty eighteen escape attempt, can we go back a 0:04:42.320 --> 0:04:44.039 little bit and can you just tell me a bit 0:04:44.360 --> 0:04:49.120 Latifa's father is Sheikh Mohammed? What sort of power does 0:04:49.120 --> 0:04:51.680 he have? What sort of his political position in the 0:04:51.839 --> 0:04:53.080 United Arab Emirates. 0:04:53.560 --> 0:04:56.600 See Shee Muhammad is the ruler of Dubai and he's 0:04:56.600 --> 0:04:59.680 also the Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates, which 0:04:59.720 --> 0:05:03.680 is a a major strategic ally to Western governments. And 0:05:03.760 --> 0:05:06.160 so Checke Muhammad is in this interesting position because he 0:05:06.200 --> 0:05:09.680 wields absolute power at home and he also has a 0:05:09.760 --> 0:05:12.480 huge amount of power and influence on the world stage. 0:05:13.320 --> 0:05:16.080 And you know, he's a big ally of the US 0:05:16.200 --> 0:05:18.560 and of the UK. He's actually in the In the UK, 0:05:18.760 --> 0:05:22.520 he's Britain's biggest private landowner. He's the owner of the 0:05:22.560 --> 0:05:25.920 world's biggest thoroughbred race horsing team, which in the UK 0:05:26.040 --> 0:05:28.080 is a big deal because the late Queen of England 0:05:28.120 --> 0:05:31.360 was a huge horse racing fan, and he had cultivated 0:05:31.400 --> 0:05:33.960 this very valuable friendship with her through their shared love 0:05:34.000 --> 0:05:36.520 of horse racing, and so those things really play out 0:05:36.560 --> 0:05:39.720 in this story that he has this extraordinary degree of 0:05:39.760 --> 0:05:42.600 power and influence around the world and particularly in the 0:05:42.720 --> 0:05:45.080 UK as well as inside Dubai. 0:05:46.040 --> 0:05:49.320 It seems like in recent years the United Arab Emirates 0:05:49.320 --> 0:05:52.680 has sort of been making a public push saying that 0:05:52.720 --> 0:05:55.400 they're advocating for the right of women. Can you tell 0:05:55.480 --> 0:05:59.000 us a little bit though, about what the conditions are 0:05:59.440 --> 0:06:01.640 for women, some of the truth to that sort of 0:06:01.680 --> 0:06:04.839 pr blit and then what the conditions were for royal women. 0:06:05.560 --> 0:06:07.400 Yeah, that's absolutely right, And it's one of the things 0:06:07.400 --> 0:06:09.560 about the story that I sort of found most striking 0:06:09.680 --> 0:06:12.080 really is that Chap Muhammad has been at pains to 0:06:12.120 --> 0:06:15.760 position himself on the world stage as a champion of 0:06:15.760 --> 0:06:19.760 women's rights within the Middle East. He's bowed to remove 0:06:19.839 --> 0:06:22.839 all of the hurdles that women face in the UAE, 0:06:23.400 --> 0:06:27.440 and he's passed a number of seemingly progressive laws guaranteeing women, 0:06:27.520 --> 0:06:30.600 for example, equal pay for equal work. He's appointed nine 0:06:30.640 --> 0:06:33.920 women to cabinet positions in the UAE's government, and many 0:06:33.920 --> 0:06:36.840 of those initiatives are spearheaded by one of his daughters. 0:06:37.160 --> 0:06:39.600 And so he has actually kind of wheeled out his 0:06:39.600 --> 0:06:42.240 own female family members as sort of emblems of his 0:06:42.279 --> 0:06:46.359 commitment to female advancement, and that has won him a 0:06:46.360 --> 0:06:48.800 lot of claudits in the West. He's been sort of 0:06:48.839 --> 0:06:54.200 praised for his for his progressive stance. But actually, what 0:06:54.320 --> 0:06:57.040 I found when I began to report on this is 0:06:57.040 --> 0:06:59.839 that women in Dubai's royal family occupy this sort of 0:07:00.120 --> 0:07:03.400 possible dual role where they're on the one hand, held 0:07:03.480 --> 0:07:07.080 up as sort of symbols of Shake Muhammad's, you know, 0:07:07.200 --> 0:07:11.040 great beneficence towards women, but actually also are expected to 0:07:11.080 --> 0:07:14.960 occupy very tightly defined roles and if they step outside 0:07:14.960 --> 0:07:18.200 of that, they can be brutally punished. And the sort 0:07:18.200 --> 0:07:22.360 of importance for Shake Muhammad in maintaining the sort of 0:07:23.200 --> 0:07:27.280 illusion of absolute power is it's essential to him basically 0:07:27.360 --> 0:07:29.320 to make sure that women in his family do not 0:07:29.560 --> 0:07:32.320 step out of line, are not seen to be challenging 0:07:32.360 --> 0:07:34.720 his authority, and it's sort of politically dangerous for him 0:07:34.760 --> 0:07:37.320 if that is the case. And so when women have 0:07:37.440 --> 0:07:41.360 challenged him, the consequences for them have been absolutely dire. 0:07:42.080 --> 0:07:45.440 One detail, just early on in your piece, almost as coloring, 0:07:45.480 --> 0:07:48.560 but that I found so incredibly striking was that Latifa 0:07:48.760 --> 0:07:52.080 was when she was an infant, was given to another 0:07:52.480 --> 0:07:55.120 of Schik Muhammad's wives sort of as a gift, as 0:07:55.160 --> 0:07:56.920 an offering, almost to raise. 0:07:57.400 --> 0:08:01.880 Yeah, it's extraordinary. I mean, Chickmuhammad has six wives and 0:08:02.360 --> 0:08:05.840 around thirty children, and it's kind of fascinating the way 0:08:06.040 --> 0:08:09.400 that these kids were almost sort of a commodity. And 0:08:09.880 --> 0:08:13.720 so Latifa and her brother were both removed from their 0:08:14.320 --> 0:08:17.000 natural mother as infants and given as a gift to 0:08:16.960 --> 0:08:21.520 shake Muhammad's childless sister, who by Latifa's account, because you know, 0:08:21.600 --> 0:08:24.760 I sort of pieced this together from Latifa's own writings 0:08:25.160 --> 0:08:27.120 over the course of about a decade, where she really 0:08:27.120 --> 0:08:30.160 documented what her early life had been like. By her description, 0:08:30.320 --> 0:08:33.800 her aunt sort of almost collected stray children in her palace, 0:08:33.840 --> 0:08:37.520 and so Latifa was raised among dozens of other kids 0:08:37.679 --> 0:08:41.000 who her aunt seemed to sort of want to own, 0:08:41.200 --> 0:08:44.679 but then who were kept confined to their bedrooms and 0:08:44.760 --> 0:08:47.680 not able to go out and to play and lived 0:08:48.400 --> 0:08:51.320 really very sort of miserable and straightened lives. And she 0:08:51.480 --> 0:08:55.560 wrote really movingly about just spending days at the window 0:08:55.679 --> 0:08:58.880 kind of watching the world go by outside. And one 0:08:58.920 --> 0:09:01.640 image that just really stuck with me was she wrote 0:09:01.640 --> 0:09:04.160 about how she would dream over and over again that 0:09:04.200 --> 0:09:06.360 she was flying a kite so huge it would carry 0:09:06.400 --> 0:09:09.800 her into the sky because she was just desperate to 0:09:09.840 --> 0:09:13.800 get away, and that was a preoccupation which really defined 0:09:14.880 --> 0:09:18.040 most of her childhood and then also her adult life. 0:09:18.840 --> 0:09:23.560 So let's fast forward to Latifah's twenty eighteen escape attempt. 0:09:23.600 --> 0:09:27.160 What were those preparations like for her? Obviously, her father 0:09:27.240 --> 0:09:30.640 has so much power, so it was an incredibly dangerous 0:09:30.679 --> 0:09:31.720 prospect for her. 0:09:32.360 --> 0:09:35.520 Right exactly, And she knew what the stakes were because 0:09:35.520 --> 0:09:38.040 she'd seen what happened to other women in the royal 0:09:38.080 --> 0:09:41.520 family who tried to escape. So her own sister, Shanza, 0:09:41.720 --> 0:09:43.800 twenty years earlier, had tried to run away on a 0:09:43.800 --> 0:09:46.679 trip to the UK and had since been captured and 0:09:46.720 --> 0:09:49.439 imprisoned and held at the Heavy Sedation in the palace. 0:09:49.880 --> 0:09:53.559 Her aunt Bushra had been kidnapped from Britain after antagonizing 0:09:54.240 --> 0:09:57.240 Dubai's ruler, and had been brought back to Dubai, where 0:09:57.240 --> 0:10:00.520 she died suspiciously. And so Latifa Is sort of knew 0:10:00.800 --> 0:10:03.760 what the risks were. She herself had previously tried to 0:10:03.880 --> 0:10:06.839 escape to get help for her sister Shamza, and had 0:10:06.840 --> 0:10:10.040 been captured and imprisoned for years and beaten so badly 0:10:10.080 --> 0:10:12.120 that all the bones in her feet had been broken 0:10:12.480 --> 0:10:16.720 during prolonged torture sessions. So she knew that the risks 0:10:16.720 --> 0:10:19.040 were huge. But she wrote again and again to her 0:10:19.040 --> 0:10:22.720 supporters that she was prepared to countenance death. She was 0:10:22.760 --> 0:10:25.960 so determined to get away. She said, it's freedom or 0:10:26.000 --> 0:10:29.080 death and nothing in between. So her determination is one 0:10:29.120 --> 0:10:31.560 of the things that's so striking in the sort of 0:10:31.640 --> 0:10:35.160 letters and messages and writings that I got hold of. 0:10:35.559 --> 0:10:39.480 And she actually spent seven years planning her second escape attempt, 0:10:39.920 --> 0:10:42.960 and she planned it in extraordinary details. She recruited a 0:10:43.040 --> 0:10:47.440 team to help her, two martial arts instructors and a 0:10:47.640 --> 0:10:51.200 former French naval officer who was to captain the yacht 0:10:51.200 --> 0:10:55.200 that she escaped on, and they spent years deliberating over 0:10:55.240 --> 0:10:58.360 how she would get out of Dubai and over the 0:10:58.360 --> 0:11:00.440 border into Oman, which was where she was going to 0:11:00.520 --> 0:11:05.320 escape onto this yacht. They spent years practicing her doing 0:11:05.320 --> 0:11:09.439 an underwater swim using an underwater scooter and a scuba 0:11:09.480 --> 0:11:11.839 rebreather to try and get over the border that way, 0:11:11.840 --> 0:11:15.280 and ultimately decided that was too risky, and so eventually 0:11:15.440 --> 0:11:17.760 they decided to smuggle her over the border into Oman 0:11:17.840 --> 0:11:20.200 in the boot of a car before she used a 0:11:20.320 --> 0:11:22.560 dinghy and then jet skis to get onto this yacht 0:11:23.000 --> 0:11:25.480 that she used to make her getaway. So yeah, it 0:11:25.559 --> 0:11:28.800 was an escape attempt of just extraordinary daring. 0:11:29.960 --> 0:11:33.160 Obviously, as your story tells, when she was about thirty 0:11:33.160 --> 0:11:36.880 miles off the coast of India, commanders stormed the yacht 0:11:37.040 --> 0:11:41.840 and Latifa was captured. What went wrong in this escape. 0:11:42.160 --> 0:11:45.400 Well, I guess there were sort of a variety of 0:11:45.400 --> 0:11:49.280 things that led up to Latifa's capture, But ultimately, I 0:11:49.280 --> 0:11:52.560 think you sort of realize when you look into this 0:11:52.640 --> 0:11:55.959 that when you're up against Shake Muhammad, no one really 0:11:55.960 --> 0:11:59.880 has a chance, and you know, his global power exten 0:12:00.040 --> 0:12:03.920 and so widely that really I think sort of you know, 0:12:03.960 --> 0:12:06.240 in retrospect, Latifa's hope that she was going to be 0:12:06.280 --> 0:12:11.079 able to get away was pretty fanciful. So her father 0:12:11.760 --> 0:12:14.920 had managed to intercept her communications from on board the 0:12:15.000 --> 0:12:19.160 yacht and was able to pinpoint exactly where she was. 0:12:19.559 --> 0:12:23.559 He'd issued red notices through Interpol, the international policing agency, 0:12:23.600 --> 0:12:26.160 accusing the people who were helping her of having her kidnapped, 0:12:26.440 --> 0:12:30.000 to enlist the support of you know, international police forces. 0:12:31.080 --> 0:12:33.679 And he had then put in a call to his 0:12:33.960 --> 0:12:35.760 friend and ally, the Prime Minister of India and the 0:12:35.840 --> 0:12:39.600 Randa Mody, and persuaded Mody to send armed commandos to 0:12:39.640 --> 0:12:42.280 storm the yacht off the coast of India and capture 0:12:42.320 --> 0:12:45.720 Latifa in exchange for an arms dealer who was placed 0:12:45.760 --> 0:12:50.040 in Dubai, who Naranda Mody wanted extra dising back to India. 0:12:50.120 --> 0:12:52.199 And so this whole kind of deal was stitched up 0:12:52.280 --> 0:12:57.880 between two world leaders and Latifa was captured and dragged 0:12:57.880 --> 0:13:00.880 away back to Dubai just around a week after is 0:13:00.920 --> 0:13:01.520 setting off. 0:13:02.240 --> 0:13:05.160 When she was tranquilized and brought back to Dubai, what 0:13:05.240 --> 0:13:07.600 do we know about her treatment. 0:13:07.840 --> 0:13:11.040 Well, so she went dark for a long time after 0:13:11.280 --> 0:13:13.319 the yacht that she was on was stormed and her 0:13:13.400 --> 0:13:15.920 friends and supporters had no idea what had happened to her. 0:13:16.080 --> 0:13:20.040 Her friend Tina just describes seeing Latifa being dragged off 0:13:20.040 --> 0:13:22.480 the side of the boat shouting shoot me now, don't 0:13:22.520 --> 0:13:25.040 take me back, and then they heard nothing from her 0:13:25.240 --> 0:13:28.520 for about a year. Only after a year had gone 0:13:28.559 --> 0:13:32.240 by did Latfa supporters get a message from a woman 0:13:32.280 --> 0:13:35.120 who was attending to Latifa where she was being held, 0:13:35.520 --> 0:13:39.400 and then they kind of began this extraordinary correspondence where 0:13:39.440 --> 0:13:42.160 Latifa was being held in prison but had a secret 0:13:42.200 --> 0:13:46.240 line of communication via this maid back to her friends 0:13:46.280 --> 0:13:48.679 who were based in the UK and was able to 0:13:48.720 --> 0:13:51.880 document exactly what had happened to her, and she described 0:13:51.960 --> 0:13:56.760 being dragged off this boat, tranquilized, thrown into a desert 0:13:56.800 --> 0:14:02.680 prison where she came under concerted pressure to recount a 0:14:02.760 --> 0:14:06.280 testimony that she'd published online accusing her father of all 0:14:06.320 --> 0:14:09.240 sorts of crimes during her escape, and to kind of 0:14:09.280 --> 0:14:12.319 tell the world that she was fine and that she 0:14:12.400 --> 0:14:14.320 was living freely in Dubai, and that she was not 0:14:15.520 --> 0:14:17.160 you know that she no longer she no longer wished 0:14:17.160 --> 0:14:21.040 to leave the country, and she resisted that for years 0:14:21.280 --> 0:14:24.120 during this imprisonment, she absolutely refused to cooperate with that. 0:14:24.280 --> 0:14:28.280 But you know, eventually, in these these letters and messages 0:14:28.400 --> 0:14:30.720 videos that she was sharing with her supporters, you kind 0:14:30.720 --> 0:14:34.400 of see her will power begin to ebb away. She 0:14:34.480 --> 0:14:37.120 talks about, you know, how she's being guarded around the clock, 0:14:37.200 --> 0:14:39.800 She's not being allowed to open the window. She feels 0:14:39.840 --> 0:14:43.640 she's dying a very slow death by suffocation. Her father's 0:14:43.640 --> 0:14:47.360 guards are increasingly appearing, accompanied by a psychiatrist who's putting 0:14:47.400 --> 0:14:50.560 pressure on her, ramping up the psychological pressure on her 0:14:50.600 --> 0:14:53.520 to crack. They're telling her she'll never see the sunlight again. 0:14:54.000 --> 0:14:56.680 She lives constantly in fear of being killed by her 0:14:56.680 --> 0:15:01.040 father's guards, and I think ultimately you begin to see 0:15:01.800 --> 0:15:04.760 just the cumulative pressure become too much for her to bear. 0:15:05.600 --> 0:15:09.880 In recent years, there have been public appearances of Latifa 0:15:09.960 --> 0:15:14.160 out in the world, and two UN Human Rights Watch 0:15:14.200 --> 0:15:18.400 officials have met with her publicly. How much credence do 0:15:18.440 --> 0:15:21.080 you give to those meetings of the UN? 0:15:21.960 --> 0:15:24.480 Well, yeah, it's I mean, it's interesting. The sort of 0:15:26.160 --> 0:15:28.640 the way the story sort of resolved itself in the 0:15:28.760 --> 0:15:35.040 end is that after decades of absolutely refusing to countenance 0:15:35.080 --> 0:15:37.200 that she would ever accept a life in Dubay under 0:15:37.200 --> 0:15:39.960 her father's control, and you know, saying again and again, 0:15:40.400 --> 0:15:43.800 I will never accept that, and I will always be 0:15:43.880 --> 0:15:46.360 imprisoned as long as I'm here, and I will never 0:15:46.440 --> 0:15:50.480 be free until I'm outside Dubai. Latifa suddenly lost all 0:15:50.560 --> 0:15:53.800 contact with her supporters and then soon after started appearing 0:15:53.920 --> 0:15:57.280 in what appeared to be kind of carefully stage managed 0:15:57.360 --> 0:16:01.800 social media photographs and then ultimately had this, you know, 0:16:02.160 --> 0:16:06.000 these meetings with UN Human Rights officials, and they're sort 0:16:06.040 --> 0:16:08.160 of complicated because it happened in two stages. So one 0:16:08.160 --> 0:16:12.000 of those took place during her imprisonment. She was photographed 0:16:12.040 --> 0:16:14.240 with Mary Robinson, who was the former UN Human Rights 0:16:14.280 --> 0:16:18.680 Commissioner and who released a statement afterwards with photographs of 0:16:18.760 --> 0:16:21.880 Latifa and said to the media that Latifa was mentally ill, 0:16:22.440 --> 0:16:24.880 regretted her attempt to escape, and was now safe in 0:16:24.960 --> 0:16:28.680 the loving care of her family. Mary Robinson subsequently retracted 0:16:28.760 --> 0:16:30.920 that and said she'd been horribly tricked into saying those 0:16:30.960 --> 0:16:35.160 things after videos of Latifa appeared in which she accused 0:16:35.200 --> 0:16:37.000 her father of holding her hostage and said she was 0:16:37.040 --> 0:16:40.320 a prisoner. But then after she a second time, lost 0:16:40.400 --> 0:16:43.080 contact with her supporters, and then started to appear in 0:16:43.120 --> 0:16:47.000 these social media posts. She met with Michelle Bachelet, who 0:16:47.160 --> 0:16:50.080 is Mary Robinson's successor as U and Human Rights Commissioner, 0:16:50.400 --> 0:16:53.840 who released a statement to say that Latifa had assured 0:16:53.880 --> 0:16:56.040 her that she was well and living as she wishes 0:16:56.120 --> 0:16:59.040 to and just wished, you know, wish to be left 0:16:59.040 --> 0:17:02.160 alone to live her life in peace. I spoke to 0:17:03.400 --> 0:17:07.560 Michelle Bachelet after that statement, and she acknowledged to me 0:17:07.920 --> 0:17:10.320 that while she'd said that, actually she was far from 0:17:10.359 --> 0:17:15.119 convinced that Latifa was actually safe and well. Certain couldn't 0:17:15.200 --> 0:17:17.040 rule out that Latifa had come to this meeting with 0:17:17.119 --> 0:17:19.119 her under durest and had been put under pressure to 0:17:19.200 --> 0:17:23.160 say those things. It's certainly hard for me, having spent 0:17:23.960 --> 0:17:27.200 many months kind of immersed in Latifa's writings and the 0:17:27.280 --> 0:17:30.600 recordings that she left behind, and just those sort of 0:17:30.680 --> 0:17:33.800 decades of determination on her part, never to give in, 0:17:33.960 --> 0:17:37.000 never to surrender, never to accept a life under her 0:17:37.040 --> 0:17:41.240 father's control. It's very hard to imagine that she has suddenly, 0:17:41.280 --> 0:17:44.840 of her own free will, completely reversed course and all 0:17:44.880 --> 0:17:46.680 of that and decided that she really does just want 0:17:46.720 --> 0:17:49.840 to live in Dubai. You know, I think clearly the 0:17:50.000 --> 0:17:55.119 stance that she has now taken is at least a 0:17:55.240 --> 0:18:01.280 product of years of torture, imprisonment and abuse, an extreme duress. 0:18:01.840 --> 0:18:05.520 And of course it's possible that she's being outright coerced 0:18:05.760 --> 0:18:08.680 and you know, is being threatened into saying these things. 0:18:09.280 --> 0:18:11.600 I think, given what we know about the way Shapemhammad 0:18:11.600 --> 0:18:13.840 has treated his daughters and other women in the family, 0:18:14.680 --> 0:18:17.400 nothing is off limits in terms of what he would 0:18:17.440 --> 0:18:21.320 be willing to do to crush their rebellions, to bring 0:18:21.400 --> 0:18:25.439 them to heal. And so I don't think anyone should 0:18:25.880 --> 0:18:29.200 rest assured that Latifa is well and is living freely. 0:18:30.800 --> 0:18:33.680 One thing that is just very clear in your story 0:18:33.800 --> 0:18:37.040 is that Latifa's family is just incredibly powerful and I 0:18:37.080 --> 0:18:41.560 will say frightening. Were you nervous at all investigating and 0:18:41.720 --> 0:18:42.800 publishing your story? 0:18:43.960 --> 0:18:48.280 I think I was certainly conscious that shap Muhammad's government 0:18:48.760 --> 0:18:53.560 has no compunction about sort of digital surveillance on journalists 0:18:53.600 --> 0:18:55.600 and things like that. You know, one of the things 0:18:55.640 --> 0:18:58.680 that came out in the course of a court battle 0:18:58.720 --> 0:19:01.640 between shape Mohammad and his his youngest wife, Princess High 0:19:01.640 --> 0:19:04.440 who's another princess who ran away from him to the 0:19:04.600 --> 0:19:08.399 UK seeking protection. Was that Shane Muhammad had used his 0:19:08.480 --> 0:19:11.680 you know, his intelligence agencies had hacked Higher's phone and 0:19:11.760 --> 0:19:15.359 the phones of her lawyers and various supporters with the 0:19:15.800 --> 0:19:20.760 Pegasus Israeli spyware, and that subsequently some supporters of Latifa's 0:19:20.800 --> 0:19:23.600 found that Pegasus was also on their phones. And so 0:19:23.720 --> 0:19:26.159 I was conscious that that sort of thing was certainly 0:19:27.119 --> 0:19:29.960 a possibility of not a likelihood, and was therefore sort 0:19:29.960 --> 0:19:34.960 of careful about digital security to the extent that any 0:19:35.000 --> 0:19:37.600 of us really can be these days. But you know, 0:19:38.040 --> 0:19:42.720 it's yeah, I mean, I think beyond that, I just 0:19:42.880 --> 0:19:47.080 feel incredibly lucky to live in a country where, for all, 0:19:47.880 --> 0:19:52.199 for all Britain's many failians, I think, you know, it's 0:19:52.240 --> 0:19:54.879 a pretty safe place to go about your work as 0:19:54.880 --> 0:19:57.000 a journalist. I think it would have been quite a 0:19:57.000 --> 0:19:59.360 different thing traveling to de Buy and doing reporting there, 0:19:59.359 --> 0:20:01.800 because I think there are a real risks to journalists 0:20:01.840 --> 0:20:04.200 in that region, and you know, but I'm lucky to 0:20:04.280 --> 0:20:07.639 operate in a pretty safe country for this kind of work. 0:20:08.160 --> 0:20:10.680 And so I wasn't I wasn't too nervous for my 0:20:10.720 --> 0:20:13.000 sort of physical safety, but certainly, yeah, conscious of the 0:20:13.080 --> 0:20:16.359 kind of digital security side of things you alluded to. 0:20:16.760 --> 0:20:20.280 Princess Hio, as you said, was Shiekmhammad's youngest wife, was 0:20:20.320 --> 0:20:23.200 involved in a court bettal and ultimately was able to 0:20:23.359 --> 0:20:26.680 win a settlement and win custody of their children to 0:20:26.760 --> 0:20:29.320 live in England. Can you speak a little bit about 0:20:29.359 --> 0:20:30.119 her experience. 0:20:31.800 --> 0:20:34.400 Yeah, Princess Hia's case is a really interesting one because 0:20:34.480 --> 0:20:36.679 she's kind of the one who got away, I mean 0:20:37.240 --> 0:20:39.720 literally the one who got away. I think that that 0:20:40.040 --> 0:20:46.960 is really due entirely to her independent status as the 0:20:47.040 --> 0:20:49.200 daughter of the former king of Jordan, a member of 0:20:49.240 --> 0:20:52.679 the Jordanian royal family, and a woman who, unlike other 0:20:52.760 --> 0:20:55.720 women in Shamhamon's family, actually had a considerable amount of 0:20:55.760 --> 0:20:58.760 power and status in her own right. And you know, 0:20:58.920 --> 0:21:02.440 while U is an important ally to Western governments, so 0:21:02.680 --> 0:21:05.600 is Jordan. That comes with a certain inviolability. I think 0:21:05.640 --> 0:21:10.160 that wasn't there for Shakemhammad's own children. So when Princess 0:21:10.200 --> 0:21:13.720 hire ran away to the UK in twenty nineteen with 0:21:13.800 --> 0:21:17.560 her two young children, she was actually afforded the diplomatic 0:21:17.600 --> 0:21:21.280 position at the Jordan embassy, which gave her immunity and protection. 0:21:22.600 --> 0:21:25.000 She was then able sort of under that cover to 0:21:25.200 --> 0:21:28.040 apply to the courts for court protection. Her children were 0:21:28.119 --> 0:21:30.360 made wards of the Court in the UK, which meant 0:21:30.359 --> 0:21:32.960 they couldn't be removed from the country without court permission. 0:21:33.600 --> 0:21:36.840 She was then able to bring a claim against Shapemuhammad 0:21:37.000 --> 0:21:39.960 in the British courts, which actually provided a forum for 0:21:40.040 --> 0:21:41.600 a lot of the evidence of his abuse of his 0:21:41.960 --> 0:21:45.320 daughters to come out, because she cited his abuse of 0:21:45.400 --> 0:21:48.000 both Latifa and her sister Shamza as evidence of the 0:21:48.119 --> 0:21:50.399 threat that Shae Muhammad posed to her and to her 0:21:50.480 --> 0:21:53.080 own children. And so those masters were adjudicated in a 0:21:53.080 --> 0:21:55.520 British court. The judge held a kind of fact finding 0:21:55.600 --> 0:21:59.360 process and ultimately ruled that indeed Chich Muhammad had kidnapped 0:21:59.400 --> 0:22:02.399 and in prison Shamza and Latifa. And so that was 0:22:02.480 --> 0:22:05.520 kind of an extraordinary development in this story, this moment 0:22:05.600 --> 0:22:08.080 where one of these women was actually able to get 0:22:08.119 --> 0:22:10.240 out and get the truth out there. And it was 0:22:10.359 --> 0:22:13.960 kind of interesting because Hire had played a pretty ambiguous 0:22:14.080 --> 0:22:17.119 role in all of this up until that point, because 0:22:17.200 --> 0:22:20.480 she had been the person who arranged this lunch between 0:22:20.560 --> 0:22:24.040 Latifa and Mary Robinson for the product of which were 0:22:24.080 --> 0:22:27.320 these photographs, and then this statement by Mary Robinson that 0:22:27.359 --> 0:22:31.800 Latifa was mentally unwell and basically shouldn't be believed and 0:22:31.920 --> 0:22:34.119 Hire had sort of therefore been part of this propaganda 0:22:34.200 --> 0:22:38.680 campaign by Ship Muhammad's government to try to dispel international 0:22:38.800 --> 0:22:43.120 concern about Latifa, and then shortly afterwards actually ran away 0:22:43.160 --> 0:22:47.040 herself and said help me, I'm in danger, and actually 0:22:47.920 --> 0:22:50.280 by way of proved look what he's doing to Latifa, 0:22:50.680 --> 0:22:53.159 and so you know, she kind of there was this 0:22:53.240 --> 0:22:57.040 extraordinary reversal on her part and so's, yeah, she's a 0:22:57.080 --> 0:22:59.520 fascinating character in all of this, and she's still living 0:22:59.560 --> 0:23:03.720 in the She actually won the biggest dull settlement in 0:23:03.760 --> 0:23:08.720 British legal history against Shapemhammed, and yeah, really sort of 0:23:09.760 --> 0:23:12.840 delivered a pretty resounding blow to his reputation in this 0:23:13.000 --> 0:23:14.720 court action that she was able to bring in all 0:23:14.840 --> 0:23:17.479 of the appalling abuses that it brought to light. 0:23:19.160 --> 0:23:23.400 Latifa's sister, Shamsa, as you alluded to, had also attempted 0:23:23.440 --> 0:23:26.000 to escape when she was in England, and she was 0:23:26.440 --> 0:23:30.640 unsuccessful and wasn't able to claim asylum in England. Can 0:23:30.680 --> 0:23:33.800