During the battle with his ex-wife, the ruler of Dubai Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al-Maktoum announced a record payment of $ 730 million

These payments will be secured through a £290 million guarantee held by HSBC.

London:

The ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, has been ordered by the High Court in London to provide British records of more than £554 million ($733 million) to settle a custody battle with his wife. old for their two children.

Much of the grand prize for Princess Haya bint al-Hussein, the half-sister of King Abdullah of Jordan, and the couple’s two children, is for their lifelong security, especially the award. decided the “grave danger” posed by the Sheikh to them himself, the judge, Philip Moor, said.

The judge said, “She did not claim an award for herself but safety” and compensated her for the assets she had lost as a result of the breakdown of her marriage.

He directed Mohammed to make a one-time payment of £251.5 million over three months to Haya for the upkeep of her UK villas, to cover the money she said she owed for jewelry. and racehorses, as well as the cost of her future security.

The Sheikh, vice president and prime minister of the United Arab Emirates, was also asked to provide £3 million for the education of Jalila, 14, and Zayed, 9, and £9.6 million to be owed. . He is also required to pay £11.2m a year for the upkeep of the children and to ensure their security when they become adults.

These payments will be secured through a £290 million guarantee held by HSBC. The final amount, although considered by some London lawyers to be the largest public award ever ordered by a family court in the UK, is less than half of the £1.4 billion Haya sought initially. head.

During nearly seven hours of testifying, Haya, 47, said a large one-time payment would allow for a clean break and remove the sheriff’s custody of her and their children.

“I really want to be free and I want them to be free,” she told the court.

The massive financial settlement is the latest development in a legal saga that began when the princess fled to Britain in April 2019, fearing for her safety after she began an affair with one of her husbands. her bodyguards and a month after she asked the sheriff for a divorce.

Later that year, a London court ruled that Mohammed had carried out a campaign of intimidation and intimidation that made her fear for her life, and that he had previously kidnapped and abused his two daughters with a another marriage.

Earlier this year, the President of the Family Division in England and Wales, a senior judge, also determined that Mohammed had ordered the hacking of the phones of Haya and her lawyers, one of whom is an MP. congress, using the sophisticated “Pegasus”. State security software.

Haya has not requested any divorce settlement. She offered no explanation, but her lawyers said she would be entitled to billions as the ex-wife of one of the richest men in the world.

Sheikh’s lawyer, Nigel Dyer, told the court during the hearing that he could not be reported until Tuesday.

He says her demands are outrageous and that she is actually reclaiming herself under the guise of her children. He also accused the princess of abusing children’s funds, saying she had paid £6.7m to blackmailers, who were part of her security team, to keep the affair quiet.

The court did not hear from those accused of blackmail. Haya said she used the money from the children’s accounts because she was too scared.

£70 million court battle

Haya’s lawyer, Nicholas Cusworth, said legal fees over two-and-a-half years have amounted to more than £70 million, adding that “the true extent of the vast sums of money that Mohammed has spent will never be found.” know”.

The majority of Haya’s financial award will be confidential, according to details of the agreement. The ruling said this was to keep the children safe from being kidnapped by their own fathers, including cash for a fleet of armored vehicles to be replaced every few years.

Moor said Haya and her children needed generous provisions to protect them from the Sheikh, as well as because of their royal status.

“Absolutely unique, the main threat they face is from (the sheikh) themselves and not from outside sources,” Moor said.

“There will remain obvious and ever-present risks to (Haya) for the rest of her life, whether it’s from (Mohammed) or just from an ordinary terrorist,” he said. refers to the security threats that someone in Haya’s position faces.

It was concerns that Haya’s head of security – known only as ‘Director 1’ – had to be brought into the courtroom to provide evidence of her security needs with windows. obscured, covered with curtains, except for Moor and two lawyers, and his name was given to the judge on a piece of paper.

Unlimited money

Haya’s lawyers told the judge the amount of money available to the princess and children in Dubai was “limitless”, with access to more than a dozen luxury homes, £400m yacht and a fleet of private jets. .

She has an annual budget of more than £83 million for her household in Dubai and £9 million in other expenditures, the ruling said. Mohammed’s lawyer admitted in court he was able to raise £1.25 billion in cash within three months.

“I remind myself that money is not a marriage thing,” said Moor as he approved Haya’s request for £1.9m to spend on a kitchen extension, pizza oven and blinds. kitchen at her London home.

Moor said he won’t give “arbitrary” words to Haya’s financial requests, but will look at her requests “with a very clear eye for the school’s special circumstances.” circumstances, such as the truly lavish and unprecedented standard of living that these parties enjoy in Dubai.”

Haya told the court it was not exaggerated that she demanded millions of dollars to pay for five housekeepers, clothes, the maintenance of her two villas, a mansion estimated to be worth around £100 million, and regular holidays. often.

Her jewelry, totaling around £20 million, would fill the courtroom if spread out, she said.

Moor demanded that Mohammed pay her £1 million for the missing couture clothes she claimed were gone and 5 million to cover nine weeks of leave for herself and her family members each. five.

“In the context of this case, she’s not wealthy,” her attorney, Cusworth, said. The ruling said she had been forced to sell £15.6million worth of property – including a horse worth £10million and jewelery worth £2.1million – to earn a living while awaiting final settlement. together.

He said her request should be viewed in light of Mohammed’s £2m bill to buy strawberries in the summer for his country estate, northeast London.

However, the Sheikh’s lawyer, Dyer, described many of Haya’s claims as “absurd” or “ridiculous”, and said they completely contradict her desire for her children to have a normal life.

He said the judge’s decision is likely to be “the largest financial remedy award certainly ever ordered and I imagine ever given by a family court”.

The largest amount previously believed to have been ordered by a British court was the £453.6 million that Russian billionaire Farkad Akhmedov was asked to pay for his 2016 divorce.

Mohammed, 72, has offered to pay regular maintenance payments of £10m a year and provide a £500m guarantee which Dyer says will “hang like a sword of Damocles” over his head and that of his family. his family.

In his conclusion, Moor said he found Haya’s evidence to be “clearly truthful”.

As for Mohammed, the princess’ lawyer Cusworth said, “the actual value of the money is very different from that of any ordinary mortal involved in this case or any of the litigants who would normally come before this court.” .

(Except for the title, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from an aggregated feed.)