Dubai princesses who tried to escape their controlling father were tranquilized after they were caught, report says

• Two of Dubai's princesses tried to flee the country, seeking freedom from their controlling father.
• They were both tranquilized and detained, according to sources and their own writings cited by The New Yorker.

Dubai princesses who tried to escape the country were tranquilized and imprisoned for long periods after they were caught, according to a new report from The New Yorker.

The report detailed the escape attempts of two daughters of Dubai ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum: Princesses Latifa and Shamsa. The report was based on interviews with people involved and looked at the communications of Latifa before and after her multiple escape attempts.

Shamsa tried to escape her family while they were staying at her father's estate the UK in 2000, but she was caught by Emirati men, brought back to the estate and returned to Dubai, the report said. She continued her efforts to flee when she was back in Dubai, seeking the help of UK authorities.

When the UK media reported the case, Shamsa lost any outside contact and was put under heavy sedation, the report said.

She was later imprisoned, the report said, and Latifa wrote that Shamsa came back from prison as "only a shell of her former self, with all the will power tortured out of her."

She said her sister was left "like a zombie" after she was given tranquilizers and antidepressants.

Shamsa tried to kill herself three times while in prison, including by trying to set fire to her own cell, the report said.

Latifa said that when her sister first came back from prison she was so used to the dark that she couldn't properly open her eyes and had to be led around by hand.

Latifa later wrote to one of her helpers, saying of Shamsa that "They give her sedatives as well as psychiatric drugs every single day."

Shamsa has not been seen in public since her escape attempt, a span of more than 20 years.

Latifa also made multiple attempts to leave the country, and wrote that freedom was "something worth dying for."

The New Yorker detailed an attempt she made in 2002, when she crept out of her mother's house at 16, in the first time she was outside alone in her life.

She was caught in her attempt to travel to neighboring Oman, taken home, and beaten, the report said.

She was then brought to a desert prison, and beaten for five hours, according to her writings cited by The New Yorker. She was beaten again, and ultimately kept in prison for 13 months.

She was brought home in July 2003, where, after a week, she exploded with rage and demanded to see Shamsa, she wrote.

Latifa said she was then tranquilized and locked up for two more years.

Latifa also said she was tranquilized during her escape attempt in 2018, when she was taken from a ship that she was trying to use to flee. She said she was returned home by helicopter and then a private jet.

She wrote that when she was detained after being caught that she was given tranquilizers three times — the third after the first two doses appeared to have no effect.

She wrote: "I want them to be embarrassed that it took the navy, several warships, armed commandos, 3 tranquilizer injections and an hour long struggle to put an unarmed pint-sized woman on a jet."

Latifa has been seen in public a few times since, saying in statements that she is now independent, and wants privacy.

The people who tried to help her escape told The New Yorker that they worried she is under duress. The New Yorker noted that she wrote before her 2018 escape attempt that "There will never be a conclusion where 'Latifa is happily with her UAE family' never."

The wife of the Dubai leader's brother, Sheikha Bouchra bint Mohammed Al Maktoum, was also tranquilized, the report said.

Her son said that she was kidnapped onto her husband's private jet at the UK's Farnborough Airport in 2000, though UK police said that the situation was just a misunderstanding between family members, The New Yorker reported.

A source close to the Dubai royal family told The New Yorker: "They made her house prisoner, and they would just keep drugging her with tranquilizers to say that she's crazy."

Dubai denies kidnapping or mistreating any of the women.

A UK court adjudicating the divorce of Sheikh Mohammed from his wife found in 2021 that he kidnapped his two daughters and forcibly returned them to Dubai.