Haya of Jordan, the sister of King Abdullah II and ex-wife of the emir of Dubai Mohamed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, reappeared over the weekend in the port city of Southampton, in the south of England, after five years practically immersed in social ostracism by the stormy divorce of the emir, which shocked the world and forced him to request asylum in the United Kingdom.
The Jordanian princess posed for a photograph with Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York and ex-wife of Prince Andrew, during an event in support of the Maiden Factor Foundation, dedicated to protecting girls in vulnerable situations around the world. The image, which Ferguson shared on her social media, was taken aboard the Maiden, whose all-female crew was returning from a 154-day voyage around the world visiting environments of poverty.
Princess Haya did not want to miss this event due to the family connection she maintains with the cause, since her father, the remembered King Hussein of Jordan, was a benefactor of the foundation and financed the purchase of the iconic sailboat that has been used for the last three decades. for the board’s humanitarian missions.
Ferguson, who has been the foundation’s honorary godmother since the late 1980s, highlighted on her Instagram the great work of the foundation’s director, Tracy Edwards, and her team: “You are a remarkable example of strength and determination. ”.
Also welcoming the boat were Haya’s children with the emir, princes Jalila and Zayed, aged 16 and 12, respectively, with whom the princess fled from Dubai in the spring of 2019.
Haya of Jordan married the Emir of Dubai in 2004, becoming his sixth wife and the most popular of them all. It seems that her problems with her political family began in 2018, after the strange disappearance of Princess Latifa, daughter of her husband. That gruesome episode made Haya fear for her life and not feel safe in the emirate, so she fled with her children to Europe in May 2019. Months later, The Times stated that the princess had requested asylum in the United Kingdom while She was getting divorced and preparing a legal battle in London for custody of her children. She requested a restraining order from the British justice system against her husband, and in October 2019, Haya was appointed first secretary of the Jordanian embassy in London, with diplomatic immunity.
The resolution of the divorce claim awarded the princess some 650 million euros, making the separation the most expensive known in history. In May 2022, British courts also ruled that Haya had been subjected to “exorbitant” domestic abuse by the emir and the mother was awarded full custody of the couple’s children.
Apparently, the relationship of trust between Haya and Mohamed was broken between 2017 and 2018, when he learned that Haya had started a relationship with one of his British bodyguards, Russell Flowers. But the conflict aggravated even more when the sheikh saw the interest of his sixth wife, nicknamed the young wife, in the situation in which two of her stepdaughters were, the princesses Latifa and Shamsa, who had been deprived of freedom.
Princess Haya’s lawyer in the legal battle against her husband was Baroness Fiona Shackleton, the same one who managed the divorce of Prince Andrew, now without honors due to the Epstein case, and Sarah Ferguson, and also who handled the separation of Charles III and Diana of Wales. Haya has always maintained a good relationship with the British royal family. One of her few appearances since her divorce was for Queen Elizabeth II’s farewell. She did not take part in the state funeral at Westminster Abbey, but she attended the subsequent church service held at St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle, where the monarch was buried.
