Dubai may have a reputation as an ultramodern place with an indoor ski hill, the tallest building in the world, and beautiful beaches, but for years the ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, has been accused of abusing women — including his own daughters. Host Carol Hills speaks with investigative journalist Heidi Blake who produced “The Runaway Princesses,” a four-part narrative audio series for The New Yorker, which tells the story of Princess Latifa, who spent decades trying to escape one of the world’s most-powerful men .

In 2018, Sheika Latifa bint Mohammed Al Maktoum, the daughter of the ruler of Dubai, attempted a daring escape to international waters, away from what she characterized as a dangerous and oppressive life among her family. She was captured and brought back to the United Arab Emirates, and though there have been public statements saying she is safe and content, her wellbeing has become a matter of international concern. Dana is joined by New Yorker staff writer Heidi Blake.

When the Sheik of Dubai’s daughters tried to escape their father, world powers turned a blind eye. But investigative reporter Heidi Blake was determined to document their plight. Writing for the New Yorker last year, Heidi unraveled the disturbing story of Emirati princesses Latifa and Shamsa, and how Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum crushed their bid for freedom. This week on Whale Hunting, Bradley Hope speaks with Heidi about reporting this story — now available as a new podcast, The Runaway Princesses — and how it reveals cracks in both British justice and in Dubai’s system of absolute monarchy. To listen to Heidi’s new podcast, search for The Runaway Princesses in your favorite podcast app.

Sheikha Latifa was born into incredible privilege as the daughter of the leader of Dubai, but she and her sister risked everything to escape years of alleged abuse at the hands of their father. Heidi Blake explores the story in her new podcast The Runaway Princesses.

Heidi Blake is a writer for The New Yorker and the author of two books, From Russia with Blood: The Kremlin's Ruthless Assassination Program and Vladimir Putin's Secret War on the West and The Ugly Game: The Corruption of FIFA and the Qatari Plot to Buy the World Cup, with Jonathan Calvert. Her latest article is “The Fugitive Princesses of Dubai.” “I definitely feel as an investigative reporter that I feel very driven by my own capacity for shock and outrage and genuinely feeling like this is unbelievable. And that kind of makes me want to keep digging. And once I stop feeling that on any given topic, I lose interest. And so I’ve always been a generalist, and I just kind of rove from one topic to the next. I’m always finding myself in new territory where I know absolutely nothing about the thing I’m starting to dig into and have to try and play catch up and get my head around something new.” Heidi Blake

Princess Haya flees to London and ignites a bitter custody battle with Sheikh Mohammed. The court hearings put the spotlight back on Sheikha Latifa and Sheikha Shamsa’s abductions. But which of these women will end up free? Infamous | A Campside Media & Sony Music Entertainment production.

Public outrage over Sheikha Latifa’s disappearance prompts Princess Haya, Sheikh Mohammed’s wife and Jordanian royalty, to get involved. But Haya has secrets herself, and before long, her own relationship with Sheikh Mohammed takes a dark turn. Infamous | A Campside Media & Sony Music Entertainment production.

Sheikha Latifa, one of Sheikh Mohammed’s daughters and Shamsa’s sister, escapes on a yacht with the help of her capoeira instructor and an alleged former French spy. When their boat is suddenly ambushed by Indian Special Forces, Latifa’s bid for freedom seems dashed. But she’s recorded a video that could change everything. Infamous | A Campside Media & Sony Music Entertainment production.

Sheikh Mohammed is the massively wealthy, seemingly-progressive ruler of Dubai, a glittering tourist destination on the Persian Gulf. But when his daughter, Sheikha Shamsa, runs away from his British estate, it seems that all that glitters is not gold. Infamous | A Campside Media & Sony Music Entertainment production.

Stacie and Alicia of the Trashy Divorces podcast discuss Princess Haya's escape from Dubai. Stacie has the gobsmacking escape of Princess Haya of Jordan, whose decade and a half of marriage to Dubai’s ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, was heading south by the time he became embroiled in yet another scandal for kidnapping one of his 26 children. Again. Source: Trashy Divorces: Runaway | Princess Haya’s Escape from Dubai

The abduction of a young woman from the streets of Cambridge is the origin-story of how Sheikh Mohammed of Dubai treats the women in his life. The reputation of Sheikh Mohammed of Dubai has been tarnished beyond repair by the way he treated his wife Haya and daughter Latifa. At least we know about what they went through. There's another daughter - Shamsa - who was the first to try to escape the Sheikh's clutches. She, and her story, have almost vanished. The High Court recently found that Sheikh Mohammed, the ruler of Dubai, had deployed the full force of the state he runs to coerce and intimidate his ex-wife, all because she had dared to defy him and flee the UAE with her two young children. The ruling revealed just how ruthless the Sheikh could be – and revealed a pattern. Because, as part of the court battle, two previous cases were combed over: those of Princess Latifa and Princess Shamsa, two of the Sheikh’s daughters who have also tried to escape his control. Latifa’s story is well-known, in part because of her genius at publicising it. But Shamsa has been forgotten, a woman whose alleged abduction from a Cambridge street and subsequent imprisonment in Dubai has been conveniently forgotten over the last 21 years by the British authorities, as Sheikh Mohammed has been embraced by the Royals, and his billions in investment welcomed. Source: The Slow Newscast: Shamsa, the Forgotten Princess

A high court judge has ruled that Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum hacked the phone of his ex-wife Princess Haya using Pegasus spyware. In this episode we look at the implications of the affair. Earlier this year we brought you an investigation into the use of controversial spyware called Pegasus. As part of that series we revealed that the phone number of Princess Haya, the ex-wife of the ruler of Dubai, had appeared in a data leak of numbers selected as possible targets for surveillance by governments with access to Pegasus. This software gives the user the ability to access photos, videos, phone calls – everything on the target’s mobile phone. Last week that story took a dramatic twist. The Guardian’s defence and security editor Dan Sabbagh tells Rachel Humphreys that new documents released in a UK court reveal rulings by a senior judge that confirmed that Haya was successfully hacked along with members of her legal and security teams. The judge also ruled that on the balance of probabilities, the hack was ordered by Dubai’s ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum. It’s an act that has implications not just for Haya and her legal team, but for everyone in the UK. And the affair has posed questions too for the British government over its relationship with its close ally the United Arab Emirates.

Two princesses from the United Arab Emirates show up in our leaked records – and we look at whether powerful spyware is being used against UK citizens. In 2018, Princess Latifa, a daughter of Dubai’s ruler, made a bid for freedom. Together with a Finnish fitness instructor and a French former spy, she fled the United Arab Emirates. The Guardian’s Dan Sabbagh tells Michael Safi that at the height of the escape drama, it can now be revealed, the mobile numbers for Latifa and some of her friends back home appeared on a database at the heart of the Pegasus project data investigation. Latifa was ultimately captured by Indian special forces and returned to Dubai. The UAE described it not as an escape attempt but as a kidnapping. The controversial incident was one of the final straws for Princess Haya, the sixth wife of Dubai’s ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum. She left the UAE after the couple divorced and soon became enmeshed in a protracted and acrimonious legal battle in the UK courts for custody of their children. As the Guardian’s David Pegg reports, the phone numbers of Haya, and eight of her close associates, appear in a dataset believed to indicate people of interest to a government client of NSO. NSO Group says it cannot see how its customers, which are all governments, use its military-grade spyware Pegasus, which is capable of secretly infecting a mobile phone and then extracting massive amounts of data from it. It says Pegasus is only supposed to be used to prevent terrorism and serious crime, and that its clients sign contracts agreeing to these terms when they purchase a licence. There were British numbers in the records, too. One of those was of the human rights lawyer Rodney Dixon QC, and we were able to check his phone. The results were not conclusive – there was no successful infection – but we did find suspicious activity. NSO says it wasn’t technically possible for this phone to have been targeted. But if people in London are finding possible signs of Pegasus activity on their phones, is being in the UK any protection? Source: The Pegasus project part 4: runaway princesses and the UK connection Today in Focus | The Guardian | July 21, 2021

The story of Princess Latifa who has been missing since 2018 when she attempted to flee Dubai but was forcibly returned by her father, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum. Host Kevin Doyle examines what happened to the Princess and how former Irish president Mary Robinson became embroiled in the controversy. The Indo Daily, Independent.ie June 8, 2021

For nearly three years, Princess Latifa, the daughter of Dubai ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, has been missing. Sanya Burgess, from Sky’s data and forensics unit, managed to obtain videos of the royal who claimed she was a ‘hostage’. In this episode of the Sky News Daily podcast, host Katerina Vittozzi speaks to Sanya about the time she has spent working with Latifa’s friends to get questions to the princess in order to tell her story. Source: Sheikha Latifa: The story behind tracking down a princess Sky News Daily | Sky News | February 22, 2021

The United Nations says it will address the detention of Princess Latifa, the daughter of Dubai's ruler, with the United Arab Emirates. Emirati princess Sheikha Latifa, one of the daughters of Dubai's ruler, says she is being held against her will in a barricaded villa. Sheikha Latifa bint Mohammed Al Maktoum drew international attention in 2018 when a human rights group released a video she made in which she described an attempt to escape Dubai. Last March, a London High Court judge said he accepted as proved a series of allegations made by Dubai ruler Sheikh Mohammed bint Rashid Al Maktoum's former wife, Princess Haya, in a legal battle, including that the sheikh ordered the abduction of Sheikha Latifa. The sheikh's lawyers rejected the allegations. In secretly recorded videos that have now gone viral, Princess Latifa says she fears for her life. The footage prompted global calls for a UN investigation, while the UK has called the videos "deeply troubling". Journalist Vanessa Grigoriadis has written extensively about the royal family in Dubai for Vanity Fair. She spoke to ABC NewsRadio’s Thomas Oriti from New York. Source: UN to address detention of Dubai's Princess Latifa ABC NewsRadio | ABC Radio | February 18, 2021

Chief joins us once again this week to talk about the Princess Latifa situation in Dubai. We get into how many kids/wives the leader of Dubai has, a daughter fleeing on a jetski, alleged staged photos, and more. Source: Princess Being Held Hostage In Dubai? The Dog Walk | Barstool Sports | February 18, 2021

Princess Latifa, the daughter of Dubai's ruler, goes missing. We hear the incredible story and the diplomatic knock-on, with James Landale and Panorama reporter Nawal Al-Maghafi. Source: The 'Hostage' Princess BBC Newscast | BBC News | February 16, 2021

BBC Diplomatic correspondent James Landale on the intriguing case of the whereabouts of Princess Latifa of Dubai. Source: Princess Latifa of Dubai Drivetime | RTÉ Radio 1 | February 16, 2021

The British High Court has delivered an astonishing ruling in a legal case between the ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed Al Maktoum, and his former wife, Princess Haya Bint Al-Hussain, who fled last year to London and is in the midst of a custody battle over their two children. Source: Sheikh Mohammed responsible for abducting daughters, UK High Court finds RN Breakfast | ABC Radio | March 6, 2020