‘Prisoner Princess’ Posts Plane Picture, Purportedly Permitted to Part with Palace

Sheikha Latifa, the 35-year-old daughter of United Arab Emirates Vice President and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, issued a statement on Wednesday through her lawyers claiming to be free to “travel where [she] want[s],” after reportedly being abducted and held under house arrest by her father for years. Two days after a picture of her surfaced on Instagram, Latifa wrote in a letter to media outlets that she had “recently visited three European countries on holiday” and thanked her supporters for their “kind wishes.” The photo, taken at a Spanish airport, is the first sign of life from the daughter of the ruler of Dubai since her failed attempt to escape in 2018, which ended in her capture on the high seas off the coast of India and a forced return to her palace prison. The UAE Embassy in London earlier this year insisted that family and medical professionals were caring for the troubled princess at home and that she would return to public life at “the appropriate time.”