Transcription
Hello and welcome to ME Live. I'm Matilda Mlinsson. It's Thursday, the 12th of February, 2026.
Today, we continue our coverage of the Epstein files, following Wednesday's heated cross-examination of US Attorney General Pam Bondi. We'll look into an Emirati billionaire with whom Epstein discussed sex, fetishes, and UAE business relations. And to end, a spotlight on those who survived Epstein's violence, as the heavily redacted files failed to indict a single one of their living abusers.
US Attorney General Pam Bondi defended the Justice Department, or DOJ's, handling of the Epstein files during a congressional hearing on Wednesday that descended into a shouting match.
"How many of Epstein's co-conspirators have you indicted? How many perpetrators are you even investigating?"
"First, you showed it. You I I find it."
"How many have you—"
"Excuse me. I'm going to answer the question."
"Answer my question."
"No, I'm going to answer the question the way I want to answer the question. Your theatrics are the way I asked it."
"Chairman Jordan, I'm not going to get in the gutter with these people, but I'm going to answer the question."
"How many of you indicted, Attorney General, before you started?"
"YOU DON'T TELL ME."
"OH, I DID TELL YOU BECAUSE WE SAW WHAT YOU DID IN THE SENATE."
"A lawyer. Not even a lawyer."
At the heart of the dispute was the DOJ's extensive and often erroneous redactions in the 3 million Epstein files released last month, and their decision to withhold 3 million more. On Monday, three US lawmakers were given access to unredacted files for the first time. They left with searing criticisms about what had been left out, specifically the identities of powerful men.
To quote, "If we found six men that they were hiding in 2 hours," Connor said in a speech to the House of Representatives on Tuesday. "Imagine how many men they are covering up for in those 3 million files."
Later on in the show, we'll be speaking to survivor advocate Janie Stling about what the files spell out about gender justice. First, ME has been looking into one of the six men mentioned, an MRT billionaire linked to the highest levels of the UAE state. After seeing the unredacted files, Republican Congressman Thomas Massie wrote on X, quote, "Until tonight, no one knew who sent the torture video to Epstein." "Our law requires victims' information to be redacted, not information of men who sent Epstein torture porn."
The torture porn he refers to is about a video mentioned that caused disturbance after the original lease release of files included an email from Epstein in 2009 saying he loved the torture video. The recipient of that email was redacted. Massie claims that the sender of the torture video mentioned was Sultan Ahmed bin Sleim. It's a name that comes up in the Epstein files more than 5,000 times. The material does not demonstrate criminal wrongdoing, and Selium has not been charged with a crime. But it is enough to cause serious potential problems, not just for Selium himself, but for one of the biggest logistics companies in the world, as well as the United Arab Emirates.
ME journalist Rahan Nudin has been investigating, and he joins me here in the studio. Welcome, Rahan. Tell us, who is Sultan Ahmed bin Salem?
"Thanks for having me on the show. So, yes, I've been looking into Sultan Ahmed bin Sleam. Um, he is one of the most powerful business figures in the UAE. He's been the chairman of DP World since 2007 and the chief executive since 2016. DP World is one of the largest logistics companies in the world and is in control of many ports all across the world, in the Middle East, in Africa, in Europe, South America. Um, and it handles about one-tenth of the world's container trade. So, it's a massive player in the logistics market. With regards to Celtium himself, he's been in the ports trade since the '70s. He's held roles um in property development, in private equity, but he's he's a very, very influential figure in the UAE. Now, he's not um a member of any ruling uh royal family in the UAE, but it could be argued he's one of the most powerful non-royal figures in the UAE. And he comes from a family um who have had a close relationship with the Al-Maktum family uh that rules Dubai um for a long time. His father advised the Al-Maktum family, and actually in the Epstein files um there's plenty of correspondence um that suggests that Sleam is is very close to Muhammad bin Rashid al-Maktum, who's the current ruler of Dubai."
Now, it appears that Epstein and Salem were pretty close. Selium refers to Epstein in very affectionate terms in these exchanges. Their relationship continued well after Epstein's first conviction. Um, let's dive a bit more into that relationship. The exchanges in the Epstein files are both personal and professional. Let's start with the professional. Tell us a bit about Epstein and Sleam's professional dealings.
"Sure. Yeah. So I've I've been pouring over hundreds, possibly thousands of emails between Selium and Epstein, and yeah, if we focus on the professional side of things, they discussed geopolitics, they discussed business very regularly, and one of the key things they did was utilize each other's networks. So, Jeffrey Epstein was key in introducing Sulleim to a number of important global figures. One of them being Ehud Barak, former prime minister of Israel. Another introduction that Epstein made was to Steve Bannon, the right-wing um strategist and former Trump adviser. And a very notable uh introduction that Epstein made was to Peter Mandelson, which um is a connection that's um really made headlines in the UK. Epstein introduced Selium to Mandelson in 2009. Now, that's significant because Mandelson was the business secretary in Gordon Brown's government at that time, and DP World were putting forward a proposal to build London Gateway, um, a port uh on the Thames. Uh, it was a new 1.8 billion pound project um that Sulleim and DP World were proposing, and through Epstein's connection to Mandelson, Sleam was able to lobby um Mandelson, and by extension, the UK government to guarantee um loans to fund the project. Um, and the project did go ahead um in 2010. Uh, DP World uh began construction of the port, and and London Gateway to this day is still owned and run by DP World. And as has been reported in the UK, Mandelson um, you know, has lost his job as uh as the envoy to America. He's lost his peerage and has been stripped of his uh membership of the Labour Party, all to do with connections to Epstein. This particular connection and the kind of discussions around sensitive UK government material is is one of the factors that that that led to that."
And Karma is still getting a lot of heat about his appointment of of Mandelson.
"Now, the relationship between Epstein and SM, it wasn't confined to emails. It appears that um Salem attended Epstein's Caribbean islands. These are these are islands uh on which um locals have testified or or claimed that young girls were transported and harbored. Um, where survivors have claimed that they were raped by Epstein and others. The files do not demonstrate criminal wrongdoing by Sulleim, but there is mention of his name in quite an interesting way regarding Epstein's purchase of his second larger Caribbean island. Tell us about that."
"Yeah, so the correspondence shows us that Sleam definitely visited Epstein's uh private Caribbean island. There's plenty of messages between the two of them talking about timings and schedules for meeting up at the island. There's there's there's a message where um Sleam talks about having had a great time having been on the island. Um, with regards to what you said about the larger island. Yes. Um, so it was documented that Epstein owned Little St. James, but he also wanted to purchase a larger island, Great St. James, which is nearby. Um, but according to reporting from the Miami Herald, uh, the owner of that island didn't want to sell it to Epstein because of his sex trafficking charges from 2008. And now the the Herald uh reports that Epstein tried to circumvent that by buying the island through a shell company. Um, and the beneficial owner of that shell company was Sleam. Now, an aide to Sleam has told the Herald that um Epstein had asked Sleam uh if he could use his name in an unspecified business deal, and then he was told no. So, that seems to suggest that his name might have been used um against his will. We don't know. Um, as you said, um, the the island is central to the 2019 uh charges uh against Epstein for sex trafficking of minors. Um, plenty of the allegations say that the island uh was used as a base for sex trafficking. However, there's no uh evidence to suggest that Cam participated in any criminal activity on the island."
"Yeah, but it's it's it's worth doing the digging. I suppose it's it's easy to forget when we have these discussions about the the dealings, the business dealings, the geopolitical dealings of Epstein, that we know a lot of this was happening in the context of um Epstein's sex trafficking. Um, but as you say, there is no criminal wrongdoing made apparent on Selium's behalf in these files. What did make me somewhat uncomfortable reading the exchanges that you had been looking at between the pair was the more personal correspondence between them uh and the ways in which they talked about women. I don't know if you felt the same. Maybe you could share with us some of the examples that you found."
"Definitely. Yeah. The the use of crass and dehumanizing and degrading language between Epstein and Selium uh on a number of topics, but in particular in reference to women, really did stand out to me. Several, several memos, one in which discusses um a woman he went with in Paris, and he lists her age and weight and bra size, and then makes jokes about her femininity. There's several references to infidelity. In in one of the emails, Salem says, 'Every married man keeps wondering every evening, should I go out and look at what I cannot [ __ ] or stay home and [ __ ] what I don't want to look at.'"
"Um, wow."
"Yeah. Uh, and then there was another email uncovered by Bloomberg, uh, in which Selium's talking about a supermodel who he's attempting to meet, and he says, uh, to Epstein, 'There's a misunderstanding. She wanted some business while I wanted some pussiness.'"
"Witty, too. Wow."
"To which Epstein rep replies, 'Praise Allah, there are still people like you.' Which I found shocking. You know, that was a really And there's plenty of other references to uh um sampling a fresh 100% female Russian on uh on Cell's yachts. Um, yeah, just a a lot of references um um that have been reported of of really degrading language about women."
"Um, finally, I think we should just take the last minute to talk about DP World, the company of which Salem is the CEO. Brits uh watching may remember hearing about the company a couple of years ago when they purchased PO Feries, and um 800 staff members were laid off with with no prior consultations. Tell us a bit about the company, or tell us about the closeness that it has to the UAE state, and whether this episode could have any fallout, fallout for DP World and even for the UAE."
"Yeah. Um, so there's there's very much closeness um with the Emirati state. DP World, it used to be a publicly owned company, but in 2020, it went back into full state ownership. So, it's 100% owned by a subsidiary of the Dubai government. So, DP World is responsible for 36% of the GDP of Dubai and 12% of the GDP of the UAE as a whole. So, it's a huge, huge player in the UAE's uh economy. And as um as I mentioned earlier, it controls 10% of global container trade. So, it's a huge part of the of the global economy. Um, but as well as economically, it's also a key soft power tool uh for the for the UAE. Um, DP World has control over some quite sensitive and strategically important choke points and ports around the world. One of them being Berbera port in Somaliland, and another one being Tartus port uh in Syria, and that was actually acquired quite recently. Um, Russia used to own Tartus port. After the fall of the Assad government, um, DP World uh took it over in an 800 million dollar deal, and it was seen as a as a sign of good relations between the UAE and Syria. So, that was a very important deal for DP World and for the UAE. Um, and so it's these economic and strategic factors that will worry the UAE. And in particular, we've seen two major developments over the past two days. We've seen two companies saying that they are going to withhold and pause future investments with DP World until the the issue around Sulleim and his emails with Epstein are addressed. So, one of those companies is—"
"I'm afraid we're going to have to rush quite quickly to the end, but I mean—"
"Yeah, one of them is Lease, a major pension fund um in Canada, and the other one is British International Investment, which co-owns the Somaliland port. Um, so those two have said that any future investments with DP World are being paused until this situation is dealt with. So, so that's that's a factor that DP World and the UAE will take very seriously."
"And DP World did not um respond to your request for comment by the time we went to air. Rahan, thank you so much for joining us here on ME Live."