Zeynab Javadli, the ex-wife of Sheikh Said Bin Maktoum Bin Rashid al Maktoum, has allegedly been kidnapped by UAE police. This was reported on Thursday, June 4, by her lawyer, human rights activist David Haigh, to The Times. The lawyer conveyed his “grave and urgent concern” to the British newspaper regarding Javadli’s safety and whereabouts, whose possible disappearance could be related to the legal battle for custody of the ex-couple’s three daughters.
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Haigh cited court documents to assert that Javadli, a 34-year-old Azerbaijani, was warned two weeks ago that she would be treated with “coercive force” if she did not withdraw her custody petition for the three daughters she shares with her ex-husband, who is the nephew of the Emirati emir and prime minister Mohamed Bin Rashid and son of the previous emir. He also explained that Emirati police searched his client’s home in Dubai and that no one has been able to contact her since last Tuesday.
On Haigh’s X social media profile, one of the latest posts is the missing person alert, with a photo of Javadli and her daughters and this text: “Zeynab Javadli, ex-wife of Dubai Prince Sheikh Saeed bin Maktoum bin Rashid Al Maktoum, nephew of Dubai ruler Sheikh Mohammed, and her three young daughters are missing. Friends, family and lawyers have heard NOTHING since Tuesday night. The Azerbaijani Consulate has no information.” A text that also states: “Her mother flew there to look for them. The family home was locked and empty. She is now trapped in Dubai, unable to leave. For years, Zeynab lived in fear. She was subjected to horrific and relentless abuse by Dubai authorities, persecuted simply for being a mother who refused to give up her daughters. She feared being arrested every day. She knew this day could come. She prepared for it. And now it has come. We fear for their lives.”
🚨 MISSING PERSON ALERT 🚨
Zeynab Javadli, ex-wife of Dubai Prince Sheikh Saeed bin Maktoum bin Rashid Al Maktoum, nephew of Dubai ruler Sheikh Mohammed, and her three young daughters are missing. Friends, family and lawyers have heard NOTHING since Tuesday night. The Azerbaijani…— David Haigh (@haighdavid) June 4, 2026
The post also links to another website, where a long statement dated this Thursday at nine in the morning, also signed by Haigh, can be read. In it, he explains how the mother, on her trip to Dubai to support her daughter and granddaughters, was first detained at the Arab country’s airport, although she was later allowed entry. “For years I spoke with Zeynab many times a day. She never stopped fighting for her rights as a woman and as a mother. She never stopped protecting her daughters, and recently protected the eldest from child marriage. She is the bravest and most audacious person I have ever met, and the most devoted mother I have ever seen. Her daughters are her whole world,” the lawyer’s statement continues, adding: “I believe that Dubai police, UAE State Security, and forces acting under the direct orders of the ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, attacked Zeynab’s home in the early hours of Tuesday, June 2, 2026, and took her along with her young children.”
“I make an urgent appeal to the international community, the media, human rights organizations, the global sports community (Zeynab is a former elite international champion gymnast), and the Government of Azerbaijan to act immediately and use all means at their disposal to demand confirmation of Zeynab’s whereabouts and state of health,” the lawyer adds in the note.
Born in Baku (Azerbaijan), Javadli, a prominent gymnast who triumphed in several European and world championships, married Said Bin Maktoum Bin Rashid al Maktoum, 49 —there is a 14-year age difference between them— and former Olympic shooter, in 2015, and they divorced in 2019. “I have been by Zeynab’s side for many years. Although we always hoped (…) that she would be allowed to live in peace with her daughters in Dubai, we also knew that the day might come when she would disappear, kidnapped by the Dubai authorities, taken hostage, like so many women of the Dubai royal family before her,” Haigh stated.
“No food, no water, nothing. Persecuted for nine months. They are going to force the door and take my daughters,” the then-still sheikha denounced in September 2020 in an Instagram video, after leaving her husband nine months earlier, abandoning the palace and settling with her three daughters, Sana, Asiya, and Salama (then 4, 3, and 1 year old respectively), in a villa, awaiting divorce and hoping to regain freedom. The decision must not have pleased the sheikh, who tried to recover the girls, according to Zeynab’s version, by sending the police to take them away. Her only option then was to barricade herself in her house, a gesture that is now common among women in the monarchies of the Arabian Peninsula who feel victimized by prevailing machismo and resort to social media to ask for help. “I cannot hand my daughters over to strangers. This is how they treat me. There is no law,” she said then in her videos, in which she appeared extremely nervous and distressed. “I have done nothing to deserve this. I have done nothing,” she repeated over and over again.
The Emir of Dubai was ordered in 2021 to pay his ex-wife, Princess Haya of Jordan —daughter of Hussein of Jordan and half-sister of King Abdullah II— and their two children about 550 million pounds (645 million euros), the highest sum set by a British court in a divorce case. This process was marked by previous trials and by the vicissitudes of the princess, who fled from the United Arab Emirates to England in 2019 with her two minor children, Jalila and Zayed, then 12 and 8 years old, because she claimed to be “terrified.”
One of the emir’s daughters, Princess Latifa, also garnered media attention a few years ago for her attempts to flee Dubai and her numerous accusations against her father for keeping her drugged and detained in the country: “I am being held hostage in a villa,” she said then, explaining in videos that men sent by her father assaulted the boat she was trying to escape on and drugged her to take her to the United Arab Emirates. Another British court confirmed in 2020 that the emir “ordered and orchestrated” the kidnapping and forced return from England to Dubai of his daughter Shamsa, then 19, in 2000, and of Latifa first in 2002 and again in 2018, keeping them in captivity for years.
