Radha Stirling, a human rights lawyer who had advised Sheikha Latifa before she fled, said that Ms. Robinson’s remarks “conspicuously conform to the official narrative of the government.”

Others noted that in the 40-minute video made earlier this year, Sheikha Latifa, speaking in English, appeared calm and cogent. On Friday, Ms. Robinson released a statement defending her comments, saying she “made an assessment, not a judgment, based on personal witness, in good faith and to the best of my ability.”

In the BBC interview and the subsequent statement, Ms. Robinson did not address the claim that Sheikha Latifa was taken to Dubai against her will, nor her allegations that she had been jailed, tortured and prevented from leaving the country since 2000.

She told the BBC that she had become involved in the matter at the request of the sheikh’s wife, Haya, Sheikha Latifa’s stepmother, “whom I’ve known for a long time” and who “asked me to come to Dubai and help with a family dilemma.”

In her video, Sheikha Latifa said that her half sister Shamsa had tried to leave the family while they were in Britain in 2000, but she was caught, forcibly returned and locked up, and has been detained ever since. Sheikha Latifa said that she herself had been kept in a jail within the palace from 2002 to 2005 after a failed attempt to get out of Dubai.

She planned her next escape for years, enlisting the help of foreigners, some of whom later spoke publicly about what happened. “She would often say this is life or death for me,” one of them, Tiina Jauhiainen, told the program “60 Minutes Australia.”