The emir of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, was sentenced on Tuesday (21) by a court in London to pay more than 554 million pounds (R$ 4.2 billion) to his ex-wife and two children . This is a record figure for divorce awards awarded by a London court.
Most of the money to be handed over to Princess Haya Bint Al Hussein, half-sister of King Abdullah of Jordan, and her children is intended to ensure the family’s lifelong security, said Judge Philip Moor, to face the “grave risk” that the sheikh poses to them.
The aim is to prevent the children from being kidnapped by the father himself, he said in the decision, allocating money to a fleet of armored cars that will be replaced regularly. “The main threat they face comes from the sheikh himself, not from outside sources,” Judge Moor said.
The magistrate instructed the sheikh to make a one-off payment of £251.5 million in three months to Haya for the upkeep of her mansions in British territory, to cover the money she said he owed him for jewels and racehorses and for cover your future personal security expenses.
The sheikh, who is vice president and prime minister of the UAE, was also instructed to provide £3 million for the education of Jalila, 14, and Zayed, 9. He was also asked to pay £11.2 million for year for the care of children and for their safety when they become adults.
The final sum, despite being considered by some London lawyers to be the largest public sentence ever ordered by an English family court, is less than half of the 1.4 billion pounds Haya’s defense had asked for at the start of the court case.
During nearly seven hours of testimony, Haya, 47, said a lump sum payment would allow for a simple breakup and remove the sheikh’s control over her and her children. “I really want to be free and I want them to be free,” she told the court.
After the ruling, a spokesman for the sheikh argued that he had always provided for his children and urged the media to respect their privacy. Haya’s lawyer did not respond to a request for comment by the Reuters news agency.
The deal is the latest development in a legal saga that began when the princess fled to the UK in April 2019, fearing for her safety after she started an affair with one of her bodyguards, and a month after asking the divorce to the sheikh.
Later that year, a London court ruled that Mohammed had carried out a series of threats and intimidation that made her fear for her life and that he had also kidnapped and mistreated two of her daughters from another marriage.
The princesses denounced an alleged kidnapping orchestrated by their father to the British broadcaster BBC, which reported the allegations in one of its main news programs. They also sued the sheikh in a British court, which convicted him of kidnapping and threats.
Earlier this year, the president of England’s Family Division confirmed that Mohammed had ordered Haya and her lawyers’ phones to be hacked using Pegasus, software created by an Israeli company and considered one of the most modern digital spy weapons ever made.
Despite investigations involving the emir of Dubai, the Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro (PL), met him during a six-day trip to the Middle East in November.
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