LONDON: A UK family court has found that Indian military forces conducted a seaborne assault to capture Princess Latifa from a yacht off the coast of India on the instructions of her father, the ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum , when she was trying to escape living with him.

The judgment of Sir Andrew McFarlane in the family division of the London high court, published on Thursday, said that the account of Latifa’s departure from Dubai via Oman in a dinghy on February 24, 2018 and then out to sea, followed by the account of a seaborne assault by Indian military forces who, in turn, handed those on board, save for Latifa, over to the UAE military, “is not challenged”.

McFarlane has relied on a one-hour video recording made by Latifa in February 2018 and sworn evidence from Tiina Jauhiainen, a Finnish capoeira instructor who befriended Latifa in December 2010 and was on board with her when she was captured alongside Frenchman Herve Jaubert.

He said Jauhiainen was “an impressive individual” and “there is no ground for doubting that it was indeed Latifa’s settled ambition to escape from Dubai. She was plainly desperate to extricate herself from her family and prepared to undertake a dangerous mission in order to do so. Indeed, a significant element in Latifa’s motivation for seeking to leave Dubai both in 2000 and 2018 relates to the treatment of her sister Shamsa .”

McFarlane wrote: “Whilst sailing in the Arabian Sea, Latifa and Jaubert communicated with various individuals and it may well be that that enabled the Dubai authorities to locate them. A coastguard spotter plane from the Indian mainland made regular sorties over the boat. During the night of March 4, 2018, when the Nostromo was in international waters some thirty miles off Goa, it was, according to Jauhiainen’s account, boarded by a substantial number of Indian special forces.

“Smoke grenades or gas, together with gunshots soon led to the crew and passengers being subdued,” McFarlane wrote.

“Jauhiainen describes being totally terrified and frightened to death. At one stage, after Jauhiainen had been dragged to the deck with her hands tied behind her back, she saw Latifa lying face down on the floor with her hands bound. According to Jauhiainen, the Indian servicemen kept shouting ‘Who is Latifa?’”

“After some time an Arabic man was brought on board who identified Latifa. Latifa was shouting that she claimed asylum and that the Indian forces were breaking international law. She was, said Jauhiainen, simply ignored.”

Jauhiainen’s statement concludes: “Latifa’s last words as she was dragged away kicking and screaming were to the effect that ‘You can’t get me back alive. Don’t take me back. Shoot me here, don’t take me back,’ in English.”

“The description of the way in which Latifa was treated by the Indian security services and also, once the Arabic man had identified her, does not give any indication that this was a ‘rescue’ rather than a ‘capture’,” McFarlane ruled.

“Latifa was pleading for the soldiers to kill her rather than face the prospect of going back to her family in Dubai,” he said.

In her evidence Jauhiainen says that she, Jaubert and each member of the crew were then “badly treated by the Indian forces”.

“There came a time when the Indian commandos left the boat and were replaced by members of the UAE Army,” McFarlane notes. “Jauhiainen records that she learnt that the UAE soldiers had been flown to Mumbai from the UAE, picked up by Indian coastguard helicopter and then taken in Indian coastguard boats for transit to the Nostromo.”

Jauhiainen, Jaubert and the crew were transported in the Nostromo back to Dubai under guard. “The Nostromo was escorted the entire way by the Indian coastguard,” McFarlane said. “Jauhiainen has not seen or heard from Latifa since that night.”

He also found, on the balance of probabilities, that Latifa “has been detained” back in Dubai, as the Dubai ruler’s second wife, Princess Haya bint Al Hussein, daughter of the late King Hussein of Jordan, has alleged, in a house locked and guarded, in conditions akin to a prison.

This “fact-finding judgment” comes as part of ongoing proceedings relating to the welfare of two of the Dubai ruler’s other children, Sheikha Al Jalila bint Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum (known as Jalila), age 12, and Sheikh Zayed bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum (known as Zayed), aged seven, who are currently in England with their mother, Princess Haya, who fled Dubai in April 2019.

