A Princess, A Sheikh and the tale of their massive $733 million divorce

Tuesday, 21st December 2021

The settlement of more than $733 million between the billionaire ruler of Dubai and his separated wife is touted as the greatest divorce dispute in British legal history. Princess Haya Bint Al-Hussain, Jordan's former King Hussein's 47-year-old daughter, was awarded a £251.5 million lump sum settlement by the UK's High Court on Tuesday. Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, the multi-billionaire ruler of Dubai, Prime Minister of the UAE, and influential horse-racing owner, has six wives. Princess Haya will get funds to pay the costs of running two multi-million-pound residences, one near London's Kensington Palace and the other near her home in Egham, Surrey. There's also money set aside for a large "security budget," as well as vacations, pay and housing for both a nurse and a nanny, family armoured vehicles, and the upkeep of numerous ponies and pets. It has also given each of her two children, a 14-year-old daughter and a nine-year-old son, secured payments of £5.6 million every year. These will be backed up by a £290 million guarantee. 'She was afraid for her life' The traditionally secluded realm of Middle Eastern royal families has been brought into the spotlight by this long-running court custody dispute. Sheikh Mohammed had previously abducted two of his other daughters, Sheikha Latifa and Sheikha Shamsa, and returned them to Dubai against their will, prompting Princess Haya to flee to Britain with her children in 2019. Despite a 2020 High Court ruling that said the abductions were most likely real, Sheikh Mohammed, 72, who is also a huge player in the horse-racing world, has denied them. After learning that she was having an affair with her British ex-Army bodyguard, he wrote a poem called "You Lived, You Died," which was generally thought to be a threat to the princess. Princess Haya continued to receive threats after relocating to the United Kingdom, with texts stating that "we can reach you anywhere," and she has subsequently spent a significant amount of money on security in the fear that her children will be kidnapped and taken back to Dubai. This year, the High Court determined that Sheikh Mohammed had illegally accessed Princess Haya's, her bodyguards', and her legal team's phones, which included Tory peer Baroness Shackleton. The breach was carried out with the use of invasive spyware called Pegasus, which was developed by the Israeli business NSO Group and infects targeted phones. Sheikh Mohammed claimed he had no compromised data and that no surveillance had been carried out with his express or implicit permission. The president of the UK's High Court's Family Division, on the other hand, came to the opposite conclusion.