'Shoot me, don't send me home!' Spy who masterminded the escape bid of Dubai ruler's daughter Princess Latifa reveals her desperate cry as commandos sent by her father stormed their getaway yacht
- Princess Latifa staged a sea escape two years ago with the help of Hervé Jauber
- Mr Jauber, a one-time spy, hatched a plan to sail Latifa away from her father
- Today, for the first time, he reveals the elaborate details of the daring operation
By
Nick Craven And Angella Johnson For The Mail On Sunday
Published: 17:00 EDT, 7 March 2020 | Updated: 03:08 EDT, 8 March 2020
The gun barrel jabbed into Hervé Jaubert’s face came with a strict instruction: ‘Shut your eyes and keep them closed!’ It was the moment that the yacht skipper knew his secret 1,300-mile journey to outrun a tyrant’s grasp had ended. A few miles short of his destination, Jaubert heard the explosions of stun grenades as commandos swarmed over his boat. Minutes later, his precious human cargo, cowering in a bathroom below decks, was seized.
Yet this was no drugs bust or anti-piracy operation, but a brutal demonstration of the incredible lengths that Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai and one of the world’s richest men, would go to, to crush his daughter’s dream of escaping her gilded cage.
Princess Latifa bint Mohammed Al Maktoum, is one of 30 children born to the Sheikh, a friend of the Queen. Now 34, Latifa staged her daring escape almost two years ago with the help of Mr Jaubert, a former French naval captain and one-time spy, using a hidden compartment in a car, a dinghy and jet-skis.
Today, for the first time, he reveals the elaborate details of the operation, conceived over seven years and planned with military precision – yet ending in failure in the Arabian Sea. The haunting last scream that Jaubert heard from Latifa as she was dragged away was: ‘Shoot me here, don’t send me home!’ The extraordinary revelations come after it emerged that a High Court judge had ruled that Al Maktoum ordered the kidnapping of Latifa in 2018, and of her elder sister, Shamsa – from a Cambridge street – in 2000.