A member of the royal family of Dubai may get an unlikely ally in his legal battle against a lawsuit accusing him of encouraging the enslavement of boys for use as jockeys in camel races — the U.S. Justice Department.

In a letter filed in U.S. District court in Lexington, Ky., where the suit is filed, a lawyer from the Justice Department, John Coleman, wrote that the “United States is actively considering whether to participate in this litigation.”

The development comes four months after the foreign minister of the United Arab Emirates wrote Secretary of State Rice to request “that Your Excellency exert efforts to put a halt to the Lawsuit’s negative effect on the excellent relations between the two countries,” according to a copy of the May letter, which was filed in court.

The Dubai deputy leader, Sheik Hamdan bin Rashid al-Maktoum, has already sought to have the suit dismissed on the grounds that the UAE is providing compensation to child jockeys and that the case has no connection to America. Sheik Hamdan, who is also the economic minister of the UAE, is the only named defendant in the suit, which is brought on behalf of thousands of former jockeys. He has denied wrongdoing.

Today, racing camels in the UAE are jockeyed by riding-crop-wielding robots. Until recently, however, young boys, many from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and the Sudan, jockeyed the animals. A State Department report from 2005 said that these boys, some of whom where trafficked to the UAE as toddlers, were abused physically and sexually. They were also starved to keep their weight down, the report said.

The UAE repatriated about 1,000 camel jockeys to their home countries and sponsored commissions to compensate the former jockeys in amounts beginning at $1,000.

“There is no reason for U.S. courts to intervene when international diplomacy has already succeeded,” a Dubai lawyer and representative of Sheik Hamdan, Habib al Mulla, said in a statement sent via e-mail.

The suit is being brought by the class-action firm Motley Rice LLC under a 1789 law that the U.S. Supreme Court has interpreted to sometimes give federal courts in America jurisdiction over lawsuits involving distant violations of international law.

The plaintiffs brought the suit in Kentucky because Sheik Hamdan is one of the largest purchasers of racehorses in that state, according to legal papers filed by the plaintiffs.

A lawyer for the plaintiffs declined to comment.