DUBAI, June 8 — The ex-wife of a nephew of Dubai’s ruler has been released on bail, the emirate’s public prosecution said, after she was held during a custody battle.

Zeynab Javadli was detained after her former husband, Sheikh Saeed bin Maktoum bin Rashid Al Maktoum, accused her of abducting their three children.

“Dubai Public Prosecution confirms that Ms Zeynab Javadli has been released on bail following questioning,” the prosecutors said in a statement on Saturday.

They added that the questioning was “in connection with an ongoing investigation into allegations that she abducted her children and refused to return them to their father, who was granted custody”.

Javadli, a former international gymnast from Azerbaijan, has made a series of Instagram posts, beginning in 2025, pleading for help and accusing her ex-husband of taking away her daughters.

On Friday, the prosecutors said Javadli had been taken into custody over a complaint filed by her ex-husband that alleged the children were abducted by their mother during a court-approved visit to see her.

At the time of Javadli’s arrest, David Haigh, her UK-based human rights lawyer, said the children, the eldest of whom is nine, had lived with their mother “their entire lives”.

He said Dubai ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum “personally intervened” in 2022 to give her full custody, without providing evidence.

The alleged abduction took place in November, he added, questioning why she was only arrested months later.

A lawyer for Sheikh Saeed, a nephew of Dubai’s ruler, said he was awarded custody of the three girls in 2022.

The decision was later upheld by a higher Dubai court, Sheikh Saeed’s lawyer Mahmood Hussain said in a statement sent to AFP.

It said the father had been “compelled to file a legal complaint against Ms Javadli for abducting the children” following publication of videos on social media “containing defamatory allegations against the children’s father”.

This had “exposed the children to public scrutiny and emotional strain”, the statement added.

According to reports, the couple divorced in 2019 and in 2022 Javadli appealed to the United Nations Human Rights Council to intervene in the custody dispute. — AFP