Campside media.
If Sheikh Mohammed felt any pressure from the whole Sheikh Al-Itifa ordeal, it didn't
show.
He was busy with, among other things, horse racing.
Some horses just give you that feeling, you know?
They're telling you that there is something about them.
There are, you can see, they're hard, and the horses is fantastic.
He was also a horse owner, one of the biggest in the world.
He's a fixture at Ascot, and always used to sit in the royal box with the Queen.
He started one of the most successful horse racing teams in the world.
Good dog.
And it's Massos, investing derby in the hands of William Viewing, Foto Dolvin, hell there
is Buffalo Urban.
It's under snow, winds at by five, water, night, water, night, forget all the time.
You win the do by World Cup, you've won the Invested Derby.
Not today for Godot.
Now someone would sometimes accompany Sheikh Mo on his various equestrian journeys.
Someone who was about to become very important to Sheikh Al-Itifa's story.
And Princess Haya, amazing for your team.
Princess Haya, Sheikh Mohammed's second official wife.
She had glossy highlights and glowing skin.
She was sort of like a Arab version of Princess Dye.
Haya was well-traveled, cultured, and a prize-winning show-dumper.
She turned a childhood passion into a profession when she went on to represent her country
at the Olympics in Australia in 2000.
When Haya was 26, she became the first Arab woman equestrian in the Olympics.
So Haya is a highly, highly intelligent, very erudite, very smart, very anglicised woman.
That's Louise Callahan, a journalist who covers the region.
She went to boarding school in the UK and then to Oxford.
She's got this love of Julie Cooper novels, which are these kind of raunchy, Mills and
Boone style novels.
She's very multilingual, she's lived in Paris for a while, very worldly.
Unlike Sheikh Mose's other wives, Haya was famous in her own right.
You see, she's the daughter of King Hussein of Jordan and the stepdaughter of Queen Nor,
the progressive monarch of Jordan.
Women are not simply a category of a problem to be addressed or ignored.
They are key to the solution.
Queen Nor was absolutely beloved in the West and in Jordan too.
And when Haya's own mother died in a helicopter accident, when Haya was only about three years
old, Queen Nor eventually became her stepmother.
Haya's world as a child was about Queen Nor and about horse riding.
When she was very young, her father gave her a foal who had also lost its mother.
And given that responsibility, really brought me out of my shell.
She was the perfect symbol for Dubai's new modernized image.
Never mind that she was about 25 years younger than Sheikh Mo.
The idea that she would marry him came as a great supplier to a lot of people who knew
her.
Mohammed, despite his love of horse racing and having lots of property in the UK, his
whole outlook on life is very, very centered from Dubai.
Her role it appeared was to be the face of the family.
So she would appear wearing Western clothes at Ascot with him.
She would be photographed with the Queen.
Princess Haya was about to play another very important role on the world stage.
A role that involved Latifa.
From campsite media and Sony Music Entertainment, I'm Vanessa Grewariatis.
I'm Natalie Robemitt.
And this is infamous, Dubai's missing princesses.
Episode 3.
So last episode, Latifa escaped from Dubai only to be hauled back soon after.
Right, and she recorded that video that would go viral, the one that Louise watched in a
cafe in Beirut.
So now we're going to hear more about Sheikh Mo's most public wife, Princess Haya, and
what she did or didn't know.
That's coming up after the break.
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You're listening to infamous from campsite media.
So Haya told a court she only became aware of Latifah's disappearance when the rest of
the world did in March 2018.
Initially, she thought Sheikh Mohammed couldn't possibly be responsible for the forcible return
of his daughter.
Haya and Sheikh Mohammed had a son and a daughter of their own.
He often doted on them, especially their daughter, Jalila, who seemed to be Mohammed's favorite.
Haya says she asked her husband about Latifah's video.
She says he told her that Latifah was bipolar and unstable.
Mental illness is even more stigmatized in the Arab world than in the West.
So dubbing Latifah's bipolar effectively painted her as persona non grata.
Princess Haya says she felt sympathy for both Latifah and Sheikh Mohammed.
But she was basically not involved until December 2018.
Some viewers may find upsetting the mystery of the missing princess.
This BBC documentary was a major news event.
Latifah's story was not going away.
Dubai's ruler was forced to publicly respond.
Its private family matter has caused significant upset and distress for all concerned.
Most of all, Sheikh Al-Atifa.
She and her family are looking forward to celebrating her birthday today, in privacy
and peace, and to building a happy and stable future for her.
The very same day, a United Nations committee made another request that Dubai proved Latifah
was alive.
Princess Haya sprang into action.
Haya called her friend, Mary Robinson, the former president of Ireland and the former
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
She asked me to come to Dubai and help with a family dilemma.
On December 15th, 2018, Mary Robinson says she went to one of Haya's residences for lunch.
Mary sat down with Latifah and a couple others.
An array of fruit plates and avion bottles lay before them on a table.
They looked at each other, warily, chatting.
So at that point, there's been a lot of questions about whether Latifah is actually alive.
There's a lot of people who have been desperately hoping for the UN in particular to arrange
a proof of life from Latifah, get some kind of statement out for her.
This lunch with Mary Robinson was supposed to resuage concerns.
But the whole thing just looked off.
Robinson was dressed for a stately lunch, a white-colored shirt under a tailored peach
jacket, pearl earrings.
Latifah was dressed in a hoodie, zipped all the way up.
What we get is this weird situation where Mary Robinson rocks up and Dubai sits down,
poses for a photo with Latifah who, you know, looks like completely blank eyed and like
there's nothing going on.
And she looks scared, if anything, I think.
Weeks after the lunch, Mary Robinson gave a public interview.
She's troubled.
She made a video that she now regrets.
I had lunch with her.
She's a very likable young woman, but clearly troubled, clearly needs the medical care that
she's receiving.
The lunch totally backfired.
The result of this was the whole issue with Latifah.
All of a sudden, it just got a lot more attention.
Robinson is getting a lot of heat from different groups about those comments, including from
the lawyer who is legally representing the princess who says that Robinson is playing
into the hands of Dubai.
Princess Hia had to respond.
And she did so on a top Irish radio station, RTE Radio 1.
Can you tell me?
Why you invited Mary Robinson to Dubai?
What's been terrible in the last few months for myself, for my family, is a situation
that was at deeply private that we've been faced with.
This is why I called Mary.
I called her specifically with a question because I've seen a correspondence from the
special procedures sponsored by the UN High Commission for Human Rights.
Well, when you say it is something that is deeply private, it was Princess Latifah who
made it extremely public and consequently gave cause for much anxiety about her welfare.
Yes, I understand that.
And I hear what you're saying.
You're using a private family matter.
And I don't want to go any more deeply into it for the protection of Latifah herself and
to ensure that she's not used by anyone else.
She's a vulnerable young woman.
And that's what's important to me and what's important to us as a family is to ensure that
she's all right.
Basically, Hia spouted the party line.
Being asked for proof of life and being asked to prove that someone we love that I love
is simply alive, is absurd.
We've done our utmost to help and protect and support her through this period.
It's unimaginable that this thing has gone so far from the truth.
Hia made it clear that she'd acted of her own volition.
I really wanted to get the right advice from Mary on how to move forward.
And I wanted her to give me that counsel.
I did it as myself.
There was no official party.
There was no commission.
There was no terms of reference.
I made the call.
Anytime the interviewer pressed her on Latifah's disappearance and the BBC documentaries reporting,
Hia said the same thing.
I'm not here to go into into the details of what is a private family matter.
She pushed Muhammad's narrative that Latifah's escape had been a kidnapping.
Was there a ransom bid?
I believe that that had been clearly communicated on the number of occasions.
Yes, there was.
And she implicitly denied all of Latifah's allegations from her video.
If I thought for a single second that any shredded this was true, I wouldn't put up with
it or sound for it.
But it wouldn't be long before Latifah's version emerged.
That's after the break.
My grandmother was murdered, likely with a candlestick.
I really think of somebody that knew her.
My family tried to find the killer.
So I keep got involved.
And asked, what if it was one of us?
She did this.
It's my hometown's greatest mystery.
There's nothing people in the Delta light better than a good story.
From campside media and Sony Music Entertainment, this is witnessed, devil in the ditch.
Subscribe on Apple Podcasts to binge all episodes now or listen weekly wherever you listen.
This is infamous from campside media.
As the Mary Robinson episode played out, Tina Yauhiyanin looked on in horror.
After Tina got out of jail in the UAE, she started working with others on a campaign
they dubbed hashtag free Latifah.
But she hadn't been able to get back in touch with Latifah.
In fact, no one had heard from her in months.
Then, Tina was in Finland, sitting with her brother, when she got an odd message.
I was obviously receiving a lot of random messages from people who were interested about
this story or the campaign.
But there was something different about this.
There was a person wanting to deliver a message from Latifah to me.
This was a total stranger.
The person said Tina would need to answer a series of security questions before they
would give her the note.
What did I get as a birthday gift from her in 2014?
And what was the nickname?
I gave her when we started Capoeira.
So there were questions that a random person would not be able to ask me.
That night I couldn't sleep.
I was so excited and nervous at the same time.
What's really going on?
Am I going to be able to talk to her soon?
Yes, it was just really, really amazing.
Finally, Tina received a picture of a letter Latifah had written to her.
It was as if she wanted to explain everything on one page.
There was just so many things.
What happened to her?
Where she has been since we last met everything in detail.
I was always thrilled.
First of all, to learn that she was alive.
I was so happy to hear from her.
It felt like it had been forever that we were able to talk.
I was able to tell her what happened to me.
Tina began corresponding with Latifah regularly.
Latifah told her that since her capture, she had been held hostage in a villa that had
been converted into a jail.
The reality was grim and sad.
I was communicating with my friend who was held hostage.
I didn't know how long we would be able to have this contact.
Tina and her associates managed to smuggle a cell phone to Latifah.
When Latifah started sending them video messages.
The situation is very hard.
In one, Latifah sat in the corner of a bathroom wearing a dark shirt.
She brought up Mary Robinson's visit and told the story, but from her side.
I introduced Mary, never said that she was a former UN head of human rights.
If I knew that, I would have said everything.
We were eating and everything.
Then Haya said to me, oh, this is such a nice lunch.
I want to remember it.
Will you all come into the living room to take a picture?
I kept saying to her, I don't really want to.
I don't really want to.
I was being put out there.
I wasn't saying in front of them.
Haya was hostage.
I was at the camera and my face was like, you know, like, there's not smiling or anything.
It was all a setup.
It was like they tricked me.
Latifah's supporters kept reaching out to human rights organizations for help, but they
hadn't heard much since Mary Robinson's visit.
It was very hard to realize that and to feel so helpless, knowing where she was but actually
not being able to help.
So far, Princess Haya had believed Sheikh Mohammed when it came to Latifah.
Observers thought Haya may have been either a knowing participant in the campaign against
Latifah or a pawn.
But that was all about to change because a fisher in Sheikh Mohammed and Haya's relationship
turned into a chasm.
At the end of December 2018, Sheikh Mohammed published a poem.
It was called The Morality of a Night.
One of our producers, Rajiv, is going to read it.
If my friend transgresses, I forgive once.
But if he repeats the offense, I ensure his regret.
The Sheikh seemed angry with someone.
I was repelled by your great wrongdoing.
The person who has spent his life hunting, he has never hunted.
His deeds are like a lion's.
Now Sheikh Mohammed has written a lot of poetry.
In the Arab world, it's not super weird for a royal to write poetry.
It's like a president releasing a memoir or giving a commencement speech after being
in office.
It's just something people do.
And most of his poems are about horses, his nation.
Pretty innocuous, universal topics.
But these weren't innocuous.
To me, they seem pointed, venomous even.
Here's another from a few months later.
My spirit is curative, you girl.
When your face appears, no pleasure, I feel.
But Sheikh Mohammed seemed like he wasn't mad at Latifa or even Shamsa.
These poems appear to have been directed at Haya, his beloved modern Jordanian wife.
Why was he allegedly mad at Haya?
It all had to do with a certain employee of hers.
Remember how Latifa made friends with Tina, the caprara instructor?
Well, Haya made friends with one of her own employees, her hunky British bodyguard.
And starting around 2017 or 18, he became more than a friend.
Right around when all the international drama with Latifa was going on, Princess Haya was
apparently having an affair with one of the men who was supposed to protect her.
Not unlike Princess Diana, who allegedly slept with her own bodyguard.
Now let's just remember that Sheikh Mohammed was legally married to two women at this point.
I'm not saying that cheating is okay, but an eye for an eye and all that?
Regardless, Sheikh Mohammed's reaction became out of proportion to the affront.
And the messages only got darker over the next few months.
In one phone conversation, Sheikh Mo allegedly told Haya,
I have received bad news about you.
I have heard that you were sitting in the palace with the British security.
I am starting to doubt you.
Haya hung up, terrified.
Haya says a number of her trusted staff members were dismissed and replaced with people loyal
to Sheikh Mohammed.
She probably felt like all of a sudden, even the walls had eyes.
And then anonymous notes allegedly began appearing in her house.
We will take your son.
Your daughter is ours.
Your life is over.
By the way, we sent a detailed list of questions to Sheikh Mohammed's attorney about everything
you're hearing in this episode.
He didn't return our request for comment.
And that wasn't all.
While their seven-year-old son, Zayed, was on a trip, Mohammed allegedly phoned Haya
and said,
He is a desert boy.
In a few months, we will take him from you.
You will see.
According to Haya, Mohammed didn't try to hide his disdain for her in front of their
kids either.
During one visit, he allegedly said to his son,
Zayed, do we need a mama?
You see Haya?
We don't need you anymore.
We don't need you or want you.
By March 2019, Haya says her desk at the rulers court had been removed.
To Haya, it was a public slap in the face.
An indication she no longer had any power.
Maybe Haya finally realized what Sheikh Mohammed was capable of.
Or maybe her own desire for freedom suddenly aligned with Latifah's cause.
Whatever it was, Haya was about to pick up the baton Latifah had placed down.
But only one of them would escape for good.
Next time on Infamous.
Princess Haya bin Talthus saying the wife of the ruler of Dubai has split the United
Arab Emirates.
The ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed out in her tomb has been found by the High Court to
have illegally hacked the mobile phones of those opposing him.
There is five policemen outside and two police women.
I can't even go outside to get any fresh air.
It showed that the UAE had lied to the world.
Infamous is created and executive produced by Gabriel Sherman and me, Vanessa Krigoriadis.
This episode was co-hosted by Natalie Robamed who wrote it with Heather Shrewaing.
Producing by Heather Shrewaing, Natalia Winkelman, Lily Houston Smith and Grace Hereman, Princess
Haya did not comment for this series.
Shoshish Malavitz is our managing producer and editor, sound designed by David Devarro,
recording by Ewan Lai Tramuen and Fact Checking by Matt Giles.
Voices by Rajiv Gola and Lily Houston Smith.
Campside Media's executive producers are Josh Dean, Adam Hoth, Matt Cher and myself.
Campside Media's operations team is Doug Slaywin, Ashley Warren and Destiny Dingle.
If you're enjoying Infamous, please rate and review the show.
It helps us more than you know.
Thank you.
.