UAE releases photos of ‘missing’ Dubai princess with former UN human rights commissioner
The foreign ministry said Sheikha Latifa was living with her family after rights groups demanded to know her whereabouts.
The United Arab Emirates Foreign Ministry has released photographs of Dubai princess Sheikha Latifa posing with the former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights after rights groups called on the UAE to disclose her whereabouts, BBC reported on Monday.
Latifa is the daughter of Dubai’s ruler Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum. She went missing on March 5 while sailing in a yacht with a former French spy and a Finnish friend about 50 km from Goa’s coast. She had earlier claimed in a video that she would try to flee the UAE as her family was oppressing and torturing her. India had allegedly intercepted the yacht carrying the princess off the Goa coast.
The foreign ministry in a statement said they have “provided evidence that Her Highness Sheikha Latifa was at home and living with her family in Dubai” in order to rebut “false allegations”, reported Sky News.
The photographs released show Latifa along with Mary Robinson, the former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and former president of Ireland, on December 15 in Dubai, according to the statement. “Photographs taken during the afternoon they spent together have been shared, with their consent,” it said. “During her visit to Dubai, Mary Robinson was reassured that Sheikha Latifa is receiving the necessary care and support she requires.”
The ministry also said that the UAE’s mission in Geneva shared the statement with the Office of Special Procedures at the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, reported The Sydney Morning Herald.
India had been accused by rights groups of violating international human rights law in connection with princess’ disappearance in March.