The ex-wife of a Dubai prince has been ‘abducted’ together with her three children by the emirate’s police, her British lawyer has revealed.
Zeynab Javadli was warned in court papers two months ago that unless she abandoned a bid for custody of her children, she risked ‘coercive force’.
Now her human rights lawyer David Haigh says Dubai Police carried out that threat in a night raid on her home.
In an excoriating denunciation of Dubai’s rulers, issued first to the Daily Mail, he said: ‘It’s confirmed, she was taken.
‘I have grave and urgent concern for the safety and whereabouts of Zeynab Javadli, former wife of Sheikh Saeed bin Maktoum bin Rashid Al Maktoum, nephew of Dubai’s ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum.
‘Zeynab was last in contact yesterday evening. Since then, all communication has ceased. Numerous friends and family members have contacted me, and not one of them has been able to reach her.
‘In a further deeply alarming development, Zeynab’s elderly mother travelled to Dubai today to support her daughter and grandchildren.
‘She went to her daughter’s house to find it locked up. She has now been told she cannot leave Dubai.’
The ex-wife of a Dubai prince has been ‘abducted’ together with her three children by the emirate’s police, her British lawyer revealed this evening. Pictured: Zeynab Javadli revealed she had lost her custody battle with him over their three daughters in a heart-rending video
Zeynab Javadli and Sheikh Saeed with eldest daughter Sana. Picture taken in 2018 – seven years ago
‘Zeynab had appointed leading King’s Counsel Rodney Dixon to represent her before the United Nations. We will now be urgently pressing the United Nations for immediate intervention and the protection of Zeynab and her three young children.’
Mr Haigh added: ‘I have stood by Zeynab’s side for many years. Whilst we always hoped, desperately hoped, that she would be allowed to live in peace with her children in Dubai, we also knew the day might come when she disappeared, abducted by the Dubai authorities, taken hostage like so many women in Dubai’s royal family before her.
‘What too few people understand is the life Zeynab has actually been living. Hidden from the world’s view, behind closed doors, she has endured a daily existence of the most extreme and systematic abuse, directed not only at her, but at her elderly parents and her three young daughters.
‘These were not isolated incidents. They were relentless. They were deliberate. And they were carried out with total impunity by the authorities of Dubai and its powerful ruling family.
‘I spoke with Zeynab many times each day for years. She never stopped fighting for her rights as a woman and as a mother. She never stopped protecting her girls, most recently shielding her eldest daughter from the prospect of underage marriage.
‘She is the bravest, most courageous human being I have ever known, and the most devoted mother I have ever witnessed. Her daughters are her entire world.
‘I believe that Dubai Police, UAE state security, and forces acting on the orders of ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum attacked Zeynab’s home in the middle of the night on Tuesday 2nd June 2026 and took her and her young children.
‘This was not unexpected. From the moment of her divorce from the ruler’s nephew in 2019, Zeynab was subjected to horrific and unrelenting abuses: attacks on her home, threats of arrest, and a travel ban that made her, in every meaningful sense, a hostage in her own home.
‘When Dubai Police last attacked her home, she livestreamed it to the world, a desperate, real-time plea for international help. Today, that plea must be answered.
Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum is pictured arriving at Royal Ascot on June 20, 2019
‘In Dubai, women and children are routinely served up on a gold platter to the most powerful sheikh, the most influential Emirati, or the wealthiest businessman.
‘Zeynab’s case is yet further evidence that women and children in Dubai are simply not safe. They are treated as possessions, not as human beings with rights.’
In April, the Daily Mail exclusively revealed that the Dubai courts had ordered police to snatch back Miss Javadli’s three young daughters and deliver them to their father – her ex – Sheikh Saeed bin Maktoum bin Rashid Al Maktoum.
In a heart-rending video message posted at the time she said: ‘I’m receiving UAE messages about bomb alerts and to seek shelter or stay inside for safety.
‘And at the same time the Dubai Courts are sending me notifications demanding I hand over my children or the Dubai Police will break into my house, arrest me and snatch my children away from me.
Sobbing she added: ‘This is my day today. Standing [at the window], watching and waiting for them to attack me at any time.’
The court order states that she must ‘return custody of the minors’ to Sheikh Saeed, and that ‘coercive force may be used if necessary’.
However, Miss Javadli claims a previous legal agreement with his uncle, Ruler of Dubai Sheikh Mohammed, a leading figure in British horseracing, gave her the right to keep the girls.
Court papers released in November last year revealed the 34-year-old former international gymnast’s case against Sheikh Saeed, a 49-year-old businessman and former Olympic clay shooter.
She alleged he caused their daughters distress and harm by leaving them without supervision, using inappropriate language, depriving them of sleep, and driving recklessly.
In April, the Daily Mail exclusively revealed that the Dubai courts had ordered police to snatch back Miss Javadli’s three young daughters and deliver them to their father – her ex – Sheikh Saeed bin Maktoum bin Rashid Al Maktoum
He countered that she refused to obey previous court orders and wants to keep the children away from him to ‘instil Western behaviour that does not befit Muslims, citizens of the UAE, and members of the Ruling Family in particular.’
The case follows a string of troubling scandals involving princesses of the Dubai ruling family.
They include Sheikh Mohammed’s former wife, Princess Haya, who fled the UAE seven years ago, insisting she feared for her life.
Then, in 2021 one of Sheikh Mohammed’s daughters, Princess Latifa, posted videos claiming to have been drugged and held captive by her father in a ‘villa jail’ after attempting to leave Dubai.
She later issued a statement saying she was ‘living as she wishes.’
And Princess Latifa’s older sister, Sheikha Shamsa, was abducted from a Cambridge street in August 2000, on the orders of her father. She has not been seen in public since.
Mr Haigh said: ‘The cases of Sheikha Latifa, Sheikha Shamsa, Princess Haya, and now Zeynab and her young daughters, Sheikha Sana, Sheikha Asiya, and Sheikha Salma, lay bare the brutal truth that Dubai so desperately tries to conceal.
‘The systematic abuse of women and girls behind that carefully curated, glittering facade is no longer a secret. It is indisputable.
‘To any mother anywhere in the world who has ever held her child and felt the primal terror of losing them: I am asking you to feel that now for Zeynab.
‘Because that terror is Zeynab’s reality today.’
Daily Mail has contacted the Dubai Police and Sheikh Saeed’s lawyer for comment.
