According to reports, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum’s ex-wife has bought a country hotel that she intends to turn into a new residence.
One of the most well-known divorce cases in recent years involved Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum and Princess Haya Bint al-Hussein, the youngest of his six wives. The case ended with the Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE being forced to pay a record £554 million settlement and relinquishing custody of the former couple’s two children. After what a High Court judge referred to as a “abusive campaign of fear, intimidation, and harassment,” Princess Haya has apparently started a new chapter and purchased a remote hotel in Wales.
According to Richard Eden’s article in the Daily Mail, the equestrian and Oxford graduate who had been searching for a new home in the UK fell in love with the family-run hotel that was located inside the grounds of a “large estate.” In order “to preserve her security,” he does not specify where it is.
King Abdullah II of Jordan’s half-sister Haya, 48, escaped to London in 2019 with her children Al Jalila and Zayed, now 14 and 10, after the Sheikh allegedly found out about her affair with her British bodyguard. Eden continues, “On the anniversary of the death of her father, King Hussein of Jordan, the Sheikh divorced his wife without warning, raising concerns for her safety because he had already orchestrated the kidnapping of two of his daughters by another woman, both of whom are now believed to be being held against their will in Dubai.”
The princess stated to the family division of the London High Court during the divorce proceedings: “Intimidation and harassment of me continues… I’m still totally afraid of Sheikh Mohammed’s authority, the risks he (and others around him) continue to present, and the pressure he’s trying to put on me. The scope of his power is enormous, and he is employing every weapon at his disposal to crush me.
In his welfare ruling, Judge Sir Andrew McFarlane stated that Dubai’s ruler had engaged in behaviour that was “wholly coercive and controlling toward the children’s mother,” launching a “campaign of fear, intimidation, and harassment… whether by threats, poems, orchestrating press reports, covertly arranging to purchase property immediately overlooking hers [he attempted to buy a Windsor estate beside a property belonging to the princess’s family], phone-hacking, or in the conduct of the According to him, the Sheikh’s behaviour was “abusive to a high, even excessive, degree.”
After the decision, Haya described her experiences as a “frightening trip,” but she also stated that the “shelter, safety, and remarkable compassion” she had received in England had reaffirmed her “confidence in the enduring power of both humanity, and justice.” She concluded that “not a day will pass in my life that I do not feel gratitude for every freedom my children and I have,” thanking the High Court and the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service for giving her “hope for a future… free as possible from terror.” Through this lengthy and difficult encounter with British justice, I have been profoundly humbled to realise the principles and ideals upon which this magnificent nation was founded.
