The ex-wife of a Dubai prince and her three children have allegedly been seized by Emirati police in a late-night raid, according to her British human rights lawyer.
Zeynab Javadli, 34, who divorced Sheikh Saeed, 49, in 2019, had reportedly faced years of threats and intimidation since the split. Two months ago she was ordered to hand over the couple’s children and warned that “coercive force” would be used if she did not drop her custody bid.
Her lawyer David Haigh said that on June 2, in the early hours of the morning, police followed through on those threats, ambushing Javadli and taking the children. “Zeynab’s home in Dubai has now been confirmed as locked and empty,” he said in a statement shared with an international media outlet.
Haigh said that from the moment of her divorce, Javadli had been subjected to what he described as “horrific and unrelenting abuses,” including attacks on her home, threats of arrest and a travel ban.
“When Dubai Police last attacked her home, she livestreamed it to the world, a desperate, real-time plea for international help. Today, that plea must be answered,” he stressed.
He went on to say that women and children in Dubai were “routinely served up on a gold platter to the most powerful sheikh, the most influential Emirati, or the wealthiest businessman,” adding that Javadli’s case was “yet further evidence that women and children in Dubai are simply not safe” and that they were “treated as possessions, not as human beings with right”.
Haigh, who said he had stood by Javadli’s side for years, described the abuse she had endured as relentless and deliberate. “They were carried out with total impunity by the authorities of Dubai and its powerful ruling family,” he stated, adding that she had never stopped fighting for her rights or protecting her daughters, including shielding her eldest from the prospect of underage marriage.
“She is the bravest, most courageous human being I have ever known, and the most devoted mother I have ever witnessed,” he said.
Javadli’s elderly mother, who was out of the country at the time of the raid, was allegedly detained at Dubai airport upon her return and found the locks of the home changed and her family missing.
