Sheikh Mohammad
bin Rashid al-Maktoum, the prime minister of the United Arab Emirates and ruler
of Dubai, used the controversial Pegasus software to spy on his ex-wife
Princess Haya, a UK court has ruled. The court found that agents acting on behalf
of the Dubai ruler hacked into the phones of Haya and five of her associates
while the couple were locked in court proceedings in London concerning the
welfare of their two children.

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“The surveillance occurred
with the express or implied authority of the father,” wrote the judge — sir
Andrew McFarlane, the president of the family court.

The judgement,
which came on May 5 this year but was only published recently, says that one of
Princess Haya’s lawyers, Fiona Shackleton was tipped off about the hacking by
Cherie Blair, who works with the NSO Group based out of Israel, according to a
report by the Guardian.

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The police have
said they were informed of the alleged hacking last year following which
detectives carried out “significant inquiries” for five months after which the
investigation was closed in February.  

Princess Haya,
daughter of King Hussein of Jordan and his third wife Queen Alia, married Sheikh
Mohammad bin Rashid al-Maktoum in 2004. In 2019, Haya, who has a degree from
the University of Oxford, returned to Britain after she became embroiled in a
legal battle over the custody of their two children.

When the
phone-hacking allegations were brought up in court, Princess Haya told the
court: “It feels like the walls are closing in on me, that I cannot protect the
children and that we are not safe anywhere. I feel like I am defending myself
against a whole ‘state’. Even in our own home they will be towering over us.”

As much as 265
megabytes of data was secretly extracted from Princess Haya’s phone last
summer, according to the judge. On the question of who did the extraction, the
judge said that it is obvious that the father, above any other person in the
world, is the probable originator of the hacking.

“No other
potential perpetration, being a person or government that may have access to
Pegasus software, can come close to the father in terms of probability, the judge
concluded.