Four years ago, Princess Latifa tried to escape from Dubai with a sensational escape attempt. A Finnish friend is said to have helped her. The woman accuses the Emirati authorities of having been tortured as a result – and is now suing in Germany.
A Finnish friend of Princess Latifa from Dubai has filed a criminal complaint against the Emir of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Raschid al-Maktum and the current Interpol President Ahmed Nasser al-Raisi with the Federal Public Prosecutor in Karlsruhe. Among other things, it is about the allegation of dangerous bodily harm, coercion and deprivation of liberty, as her German lawyer Elisabeth Baier said. Tiina Jauhiainen claims to have helped the princess try to escape by ship in 2018.
She was captured and tortured by UAE security forces. Among other things, she was held in solitary confinement in an ice-cold room for two weeks and interrogated for up to 18 hours a day. She was not allowed to contact a lawyer or the consulate. At the time, Al-Raisi was the Inspector General of the Interior Ministry of the United Arab Emirates, the city-state of Dubai is part of the Emirates. Jauhiainen has since been released and has filed a complaint through German and British lawyers.
They hope for a prosecution according to the principle of universal jurisdiction. According to this principle, certain serious crimes can be prosecuted in Germany even if the offense has no connection to Germany. At the beginning of the year, for example, a former Syrian secret service employee was sentenced to life imprisonment in Koblenz in the world’s first trial of state torture in Syria, including for crimes against humanity. The Attorney General has not yet been able to confirm receipt of Jauhiainen’s complaint.
Princess Latifa was not seen in public for a long time after the failed attempt to escape. In 2021, the British broadcaster BBC published a video call for help from the princess about two years old, according to which she was being held by her father and feared for her life. In February this year, UN human rights commissioner Michelle Bachelet met the princess in Paris. Latifa said there that she was fine, she later said.