Welcome to the high-stakes divorce of Dubai's Sheikh Maktoum and Princess Haya.

Threats of kidnap, accusations of high-tech spying and billions of dollars up for grabs along with one royal’s freedom.

- WILLIAM LANGLEY

The money at stake is surreal, the testimony reads like a James Bond script, and some of the most powerful people on earth don’t know which side to take. Behind the Gothic facade of London’s High Court, a ferocious divorce battle between fabulously wealthy ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum and his glamorous Jordanian wife, Princess Haya, has sent shockwaves through high society, politics, diplomacy and the British royal family – and might not be over yet.

In December, after months of hair-raising evidence, 47-year-old Haya was awarded a record-breaking sum of £550 million ($1 billion), with the judge castigating the 72-year-old sheikh as “a clear and ever-present danger” to his wife’s safety. There were tales of stately homes being purchased simply to spy on other stately homes; of stalkings, kidnappings, affairs, blackmail and high-tech phone hacking. Even the lawyers – some of the most expensive and celebrated in the business – are claiming to have been bugged.

Sheikh Maktoum painted himself as a man of integrity, fighting against his wife’s unreasonable demands, and for custody of his children. British-educated Haya portrayed him instead as a ruthless tyrant who kidnapped two of his own daughters, and who spares no efforts to impose his will on his family. Haya told the court that even after she left the sheikh in 2019 and fled to London, she “felt hunted all the time”, that her activities were constantly monitored, and there was “nowhere safe for me to hide”.