Dubai’s ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, inflicted “exorbitant” domestic abuse against his ex-wife, a senior British judge has concluded as he awarded her sole responsibility for looking after their children.
The ruling caps the end of an extraordinary, bitter and hugely expensive three-year custody battle at the High Court in London between Mohammed and his former wife, Princess Haya bint al-Hussein, half-sister of Jordan’s King Abdullah.A statement issued on behalf of Sheikh Mohammed said he loved his children and would always provide for them. “He maintains his denial of the allegations made in these contentious proceedings,” it said.
The case has included revelations of kidnappings, death threats, the princess’s affair with a bodyguard, blackmail, spying, and sophisticated phone hacking set against a background of mansions, expensive clothes, millions of dollars of jewellery and race horses.The London court has previously ruled the Dubai ruler had made Haya fear for her life, had abducted and mistreated two of his daughters by another marriage, and had ordered the phones of Haya and her lawyers, one a British lawmaker, to be hacked using the state security software “Pegasus”.
It has also determined that Mohammed, the vice president and prime minister of the United Arab Emirates, must provide a British record of more than 554 million pounds ($730.50 million)for the children’s long-term security and maintenance.In his final ruling, Andrew McFarlane, President of the Family Division in England and Wales, said Mohammed had “consistently displayed coercive and controlling behaviour” against family members who defied his will.
“Although conducted on a scale which is entirely outside the ordinary circumstances of cases heard in the Family Court in this jurisdiction, the father’s behaviour towards the mother of his children is ‘domestic abuse’,” McFarlane said.Haya alone should determine all matters relating to the education and health of the couple’s two children, Jalila, 14, and Zayed, 10, with Mohammed merely kept informed, the judge concluded.
His relationship with the children will be limited to phone calls and messages after the sheikh himself decided not to pursue direct contact with them, McFarlane said.
