Princess Latifa, the captive daughter of Dubai’s ruler, has appealed to UK police to re-investigate the kidnap of her older sister from a Cambridge street more than 20 years ago.
In a letter shared with the BBC, Latifa tells Cambridgeshire police this could help free Princess Shamsa, who was captured on the orders of their father.
Shamsa, who was just 18 then and is now 39, has not been seen in public since.
The government of Dubai has not responded to BBC requests for comment.
A High Court judge ruled in 2019, that Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum had abducted both daughters and held them against their will.
Last week BBC Panorama broadcast shocking videos Latifa had secretly recorded on a phone she had been given, in which she described how she was being held “hostage” by her father following a failed escape attempt in 2018. The UN has since asked the United Arab Emirates for proof that Latifa is alive.
But almost two decades earlier, an attempt by her older sister to flee the family also ended in capture and imprisonment.
In August 2000, around two months after escaping from her father’s Longcross Estate in Surrey, Shamsa was forcibly taken from Cambridge, flown by helicopter to France and then by private jet back to Dubai.
Latifa’s handwritten letter, which was passed to the Cambridgeshire force by her friends on Wednesday, urges action for her sister by British authorities. It was written in 2019 while she was being held in solitary confinement in a “jail villa”.
“All I ask of you”, writes Latifa, “is to please give attention on her case because it could get her her freedom… your help and attention on her case could free her.”
She adds: “She has strong links to England… she really loves England, all of her fondest memories are of her time there.”
Latifa dated the letter February 2018, before her escape attempt, to avoid revealing that she had a way of communicating with the outside world from captivity. It paints a chilling picture of her sister’s fate after she was returned to Dubai.
“She was kept incommunicado with no release date, trial or charge. She was tortured by getting her feet caned…”
It later emerged that aides acting for the sheikh had made representations to the Foreign Office around the time of the investigation.
Police reviewed the investigation in 2018, and BBC News can now reveal that one investigator acknowledged there were “significant sensitivities” with the case.
A further review was launched after the High Court judgment was published in 2020.
In a statement to BBC News, Cambridgeshire Police said it had received Latifa’s letter, which “will be looked at as part of the ongoing review”.
The statement added: “This is a very complex and serious matter and as such there are details of the case that it would be inappropriate to discuss publicly.”
The Foreign Office, which has previously faced questions over its response in the wake of representations from a powerful state ally, told the BBC this was a private matter between two individuals and it had no role in the investigation by Cambridgeshire Constabulary or its outcome.
They also declined to comment on contact from the sheikh’s office regarding the case.
After the footage of Princess Latifa emerged, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said the footage was “deeply troubling” and that the UK would “watch very closely developments on that front”.
In 2018, the Dubai Royal Court told the BBC that Shamsa was “adored and cherished”.
The sheikh’s only statement on the case has been to the High Court, and speaks of “relief” at having found his “vulnerable” daughter Shamsa after she went missing.
Shamsa’s story prefigured what happened to Latifa 18 years later and played a key role in her decision to seek a new life abroad. It led directly to her failed escape on a boat in the Indian Ocean. In a video posted to YouTube before her attempt to escape in 2018 Latifa describes what happened to her sister and its severe repercussions.
BBC News has also spoken to someone who had regular contact with Shamsa in Dubai: “You didn’t need to be a doctor to know that [she] was tranquilised all the time.”
The failed escape of the young Shamsa
Princess Shamsa had grown up partly in the UK and had been given a Western education.
“Shamsa wasn’t what you would call a ‘Princess'”, according to her cousin Marcus Essabri, who lived with the family in Dubai for two years and was close to her. “She was cheeky. Full of life and adventure.”
“She wanted to make a difference for women, in the Arab world especially. She wanted to push the boundaries… this is when the problems started,” Mr Essabri said.
Shamsa wrote to Mr Essabri from London in September 1999, nine months before her escape. Her father, then Crown Prince of Dubai, was not letting her pursue her studies and go to university.
“I’m not allowed to continue. You know that he didn’t even ask me what I was interested in. He just said no.”
She confided in her cousin that she was thinking of running away.
“The one thing that scares me is imagining myself old and regretting not trying when I was 18. Try what? I don’t know. Just taking that chance”.
Then in summer 2000, she took it. She drove a black Range Rover to the edge of the sheikh’s sprawling £75m estate at Longcross in Surrey and slipped away. The sheikh deployed a team of agents to secretly track her down.
On 19 August 2000, a man took Shamsa to Cambridge, where they checked into the University Arms Hotel. Unbeknownst to her, up to four of her father’s operatives had arrived, and she was captured on the street.
Shamsa was driven to the sheikh’s estate near Newmarket. By 0500 the next day, she was on a helicopter from Newmarket to northern France, where she was transferred to a private jet.
Hours later, she was back in Dubai: her dreams of freedom and of an education over.
How a British investigation stalled
It took around seven months for the kidnap allegation to reach Det Ch Insp David Beck at central Cambridge’s Parkside Police Station.
“It’s not every day that an allegation involving a head of state lands on a police officer’s desk,” he told the BBC in 2018 for the documentary Escape from Dubai.
Shamsa had managed to get a letter to the immigration lawyer she’d met while she was in London earlier: “I don’t have the time to write in detail. I am being watched all the time so I’ll get straight to the point. I was caught by my father, he managed to track me down. I am locked up until today… now, I am not only asking you to report this immediately, I am asking your help and to involve the authorities (involve everyone).”
“The evidence at that point suggested that there may be some substance to what was being alleged. If the allegation was true, then an offence appears to have been committed against a UK law,” Det Ch Insp Beck told the BBC in 2018.
More details of the investigation were only revealed last year, when Cambridgeshire Police complied with a disclosure order from the High Court.
It emerged that he had managed to speak to Shamsa by phone, and then corroborated key details of her story. But he needed to go to Dubai to interview her and investigate further. He applied through the Crown Prosecution Service, but his request was rejected.
“I was never given a reason why.”
The case was shelved, until a review in 2018 in the wake of yet another message from Shamsa. That was eventually closed because of “insufficient evidence to take any further action”.
The sheikh did submit a statement to the High Court describing Shamsa as “more vulnerable than other young women of her age” because her status made her a kidnap risk.
Latifa’s letter will represent the third time a plea has been made for police to investigate the abduction.
In 2000 or 2001 the sheikh’s London office contacted the Foreign Office about Shamsa’s case. The FCO would later confirm in a Parliamentary answer that they had responded that it was a matter for the police. But inside the Foreign Office, BBC News understands that there was silence about the alleged abduction.
Tony Blair, then prime minister, told us through a spokesperson, that he has “absolutely no recollection of this coming to him in government”.
In response to a BBC Freedom of Information request for any conversations held by the FCO relating to the case, we were told that “disclosure of information detailing our relationship with the UAE Government could potentially damage the bilateral relationship between the UK and UAE.”
The ‘zombie’ life of Shamsa now
Latifa has said that Shamsa spent the eight years after her capture in prison.
When she was released in 2008, Latifa was able to see her. “She had to be led around by her hand. She couldn’t open her eyes… she was given a bunch of pills to control her. Those pills made her like a zombie.”
The person who had contact with Shamsa after her release said: “She was just…. kept quiet. Everything she did was controlled. There was no spark in Shamsa any more. There was no fight in her. There was nothing. She was just a shell.”
“I think she just resigned herself to the fact that this was her life. It’s desperately sad.”
In 2019 Latifa met Shamsa again, by which time Latifa was imprisoned herself after also trying to escape. She described the meeting to her cousin via her secret phone.
“Latifa warned me ‘you are not going to recognise her now’. She has been drugged up so much. She is alive. But Shamsa is not Shamsa”, said Mr Essabri.
The person who has known Shamsa adds: “You couldn’t actually make this up. Because who would believe you. It seems so unreal. But unfortunately, it’s real. And I understand that people can’t get their head round it, they just see some rich girl. It’s not like that at all. It’s horrific.”
Dozens of Palestinians killed in overnight Israeli strikes in central and south Gaza as Red Sea tensions rise.
Here’s how things stand on Monday, January 15, 2024:
Latest updates and human impact
- Israeli attacks continue unabated overnight killing and wounding dozens of civilians in central and southern Gaza. At least 22 people were killed and a large number injured as a result of Israeli forces targeting al-Thalatheni Street in the central Gaza Strip.
- Yemen’s Houthi rebels fired an antiship cruise missile toward an American destroyer in the Red Sea, which was shot down by a US fighter jet, announced US Central Command (CENTCOM) on X.
- This was the first US-acknowledged Houthi attack since the US strikes on Yemen on Friday.
- Hamas released a 37-second video showing three Israeli captives held in Gaza on Sunday, saying they would reveal the fate of the captives on Monday and urging the Israeli government to stop the offensive.
- The Israeli military says it has shifted to a new phase of the war focused on the southern end of Gaza, where almost 2 million internally displaced Palestinians are running out of safe spaces to shelter.
- The Gaza Ministry of Health has said almost 24,000 people have been killed in the Israeli offensive. More than 60,000 people have been wounded in 100 days of war.
Diplomacy
- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that his country will pursue its war against Hamas until victory and will not be stopped by anyone, including the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
- The White House said on Sunday that “it’s the right time” for Israel to scale back its military offensive in the Gaza Strip.
- Egypt’s State Information Service (SIS) said in a statement on Sunday that one of the biggest obstacles to the timely delivery of sufficient aid to Gaza was Israeli inspection of the aid. The statement came after Israel blamed Cairo for the delay in aid delivery to Gaza during its defence at the ICJ.
- US Secretary of State Antony Blinken posted on X on Monday, calling for the release of the remaining captives held in Gaza on the 100th day since they were taken by Hamas. He did not mention the Palestinian casualties.
- Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong, who described herself as a “friend of Israel” to the press, will travel to Jordan, Israel, the occupied Palestinian Territories and the United Arab Emirates this week, her office said on Monday.
West Bank raids and violence
- Israeli forces arrested 25 students staging a sit-in in protest against high tuition fees at An-Najah University in Nablus. Al Jazeera’s Hamdah Salhut reported that the protesting students received a text message from Israeli forces telling them to “surrender now”.
- Israeli forces have reportedly raided the family home of Nael al-Barghouti, the longest-serving Palestinian prisoner, in the village of Kobar, in Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank.
- The Israeli army said on Friday that it killed three Palestinian men who infiltrated a West Bank settlement and fired upon soldiers.
- The Israeli military killed two Palestinians after accusing them of ramming their car through a checkpoint near Hebron.
- Local sources reported that Israeli forces bulldozed two Palestinian-owned houses during a Sunday midnight raid in the city of Qalqilya, Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.
- Armed Israeli settlers broke into the village of Burin, south of Nablus, and attacked Palestinian residents’ houses and properties after midnight on Sunday, Wafa reported.
- “Violent raids and arrests have become part of the fabric of daily life in the occupied West Bank,” Al Jazeera’s Mohammed Jamjoom, reporting from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, said. At least 347 Palestinians have been killed and thousands have been arrested since October 7.
Flames and smoke billow during Israeli attacks against Gaza on October 9, 2023
Human Rights Watch terms Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant’s call for a ‘complete siege’ on Gaza a ‘war crime’.
The Hamas movement has threatened to kill an Israeli hostage every time Israel bombs a Palestinian home without warning as Israel mobilised some 300,000 reservists and imposed a total blockade of the Gaza Strip, denying the enclave’s millions of residents access to food, water and fuel.
The warning from Hamas came on Monday as the death toll from the armed group’s surprise weekend attack climbed to 900 in Israel and revenge attacks by Israeli forces on the besieged Gaza Strip killed more than 700 people and left some 3,700 others wounded.
Residential apartment blocks, hospitals, schools and a mosque have been among the sites attacked by Israeli fighter jets, artillery and drones, according to media reports and witnesses.
Hamas spokesperson Abu Ubaida issued the threat to kill Israelis from the dozens held captive by the armed group. He said an Israeli hostage would be killed for every Israeli bombing of a civilian house without warning.
Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said more than 100 people were taken captive by Hamas during the deadly cross-border incursion over the weekend.
As Israeli forces conducted intense retaliatory attacks on Gaza on Monday, Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant drew international condemnation by announcing a total blockade of the densely populated and besieged enclave, which is home to 2.3 million people.
Gallant said Israel would impose a “complete siege” on Gaza. “No electricity, no food, no water, no gas – it’s all closed.”
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was “deeply distressed” by the siege announcement and warned that Gaza’s already dire humanitarian situation will now “only deteriorate exponentially”.
Guterres also said some 137,000 people were taking shelter with the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) at schools across Gaza.
UNRWA said on Tuesday that almost 190,000 people have been displaced in Gaza amid the Israeli attacks and the figure is expected to grow further as the violence intensifies.
Nearly half a million people have also not received food rations this week in Gaza as UN food distribution centres have been forced to remain closed amid the Israeli onslaught, UNRWA said.
Human Rights Watch said Israel’s total blockade on the necessities of life for everyday people in Gaza was a war crime.
“Defense Minister Gallant’s statements are abhorrent,” Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.
“Depriving the population in an occupied territory of food and electricity is collective punishment, which is a war crime, as is using starvation as a weapon of war. The International Criminal Court should take note of this call to commit a war crime,” he said.
Abhorrent. This is a call to commit a war crime by @yoavgallant. The @IntlCrimCourt should take note.
Quote by @OmarSShakir ⤵️ https://t.co/kKVo6YtpI1 pic.twitter.com/neHQMwnXVn
— Human Rights Watch (@hrw) October 9, 2023
Shakir also condemned the threat by Hamas to kill hostages, warning that such action was also a war crime.
“All hostages should be safely released to their families,” he said.
Grotesque. These threatened acts would amount to flagrant war crimes by Hamas’ armed wing. The @IntlCrimCourt will be watching.
Quote from @OmarSShakir ⤵️ https://t.co/FuNtvHe0YG pic.twitter.com/6cnHODLWyZ
— Human Rights Watch (@hrw) October 9, 2023
On the diplomatic front, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on Hamas and Israel to immediately end violence and protect civilians, the Egyptian presidency said.
Erdogan urged Israel against “indiscriminately” attacking civilians and delivered measured criticism of Hamas, urging both sides to respect the “ethics” of war.
The United Kingdom, French, German, Italian and US governments issued a joint statement on Monday recognising the “legitimate aspirations” of the Palestinian people and supporting equal measures of justice and freedom for Israelis and Palestinians alike.
But the prospect that fighting could spread also alarmed the region and the world.
Lebanese armed group Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel in response to at least three of its members being killed in Israeli shelling of Lebanon.
Israel said one of its deputy commanders was also killed in an earlier cross-border raid from Lebanon.
US President Joe Biden holds a bilateral meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the sidelines of the 78th United Nations General Assembly in New York City, the US, September 20, 2023
Social media users, including journalists and observers, are calling out what they call a ‘double standard’.
After Saturday’s surprise attack by the Palestinian group Hamas on Israel, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy took to the social media platform X to offer “condolences go out to everyone who lost relatives or close ones in the terrorist attack”.
He also stated, “Israel’s right to self-defence is unquestionable.”
Many world leaders, including US President Joe Biden and UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, shared similar sentiments.
The world is seeing appalling images.
Thousands of rockets raining down on Israeli cities. Hamas terrorists killing not only Israeli soldiers, but civilians on the streets and in their homes.
It’s unconscionable. Israel has a right to defend itself – full stop.
— President Biden (@POTUS) October 7, 2023
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen stated, “Israel has the right to defend itself – today and in the days to come. The European Union stands with Israel.”
Accusations of Western ‘double standards’
Some social media users have criticised these statements, saying they highlight a double standard.
The world is seeing appalling images.
Thousands of rockets raining down on Israeli cities. Hamas terrorists killing not only Israeli soldiers, but civilians on the streets and in their homes.
It’s unconscionable. Israel has a right to defend itself – full stop.
— President Biden (@POTUS) October 7, 2023
Ukraine’s right to defend itself is praised by most international leaders while Russia’s invasion is condemned, but commentators said the same cannot be said about Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.
Aaron Bastani, a leftist British journalist, said on X that there’s a “clear double standard in endorsing terrorism against civilian targets in Ukraine … and condemning it by Palestinians”.
Many users said Western diplomats and media support the Ukrainians who defend their land, but label the Palestinians fighting against Israel as “terrorists”.
https://twitter.com/KhaledBeydoun/status/1710787817415082349?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1710787817415082349%7Ctwgr%5E6acf829869e993177f32aa38aa48c02f38cb7f61%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.aljazeera.com%2Fnews%2F2023%2F10%2F9%2Fwestern-leaders-accused-of-hypocrisy-over-response-to-palestine-ukraine
An illustration of a woman’s face, in which one eye is closed beside a Palestinian flag, and one eye open beside a Ukrainian flag, has been regularly shared as a symbol of the West’s alleged double standards in how the two conflicts are viewed.
https://twitter.com/OnlinePalEng/status/1710994682883273172?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1710994682883273172%7Ctwgr%5E6acf829869e993177f32aa38aa48c02f38cb7f61%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.aljazeera.com%2Fnews%2F2023%2F10%2F9%2Fwestern-leaders-accused-of-hypocrisy-over-response-to-palestine-ukraine
Clips also emerged on social media from a CNN interview with Mustafa Barghouti, the general secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative, in which he posed the rhetorical question, “Why does the United States support Ukraine in fighting occupation – while here they support the occupier, who continues to occupy us?”
The hypocrisy and double standards of western governments and media platforms dealing with situations in Ukraine-Russia and Palestine-Israel blow the mind. Absolute disgrace.
— Said Yacoubi (@AlyacoubiSaid) October 8, 2023
It is not the first time Western nations have been accused of double standards in their stance on the Ukraine war.
Earlier in the year, Amnesty International published a report highlighting the West’s “double standards” on global human rights.
Agnes Callamard, Amnesty’s secretary-general, told Al Jazeera at the time that the occupation of Palestinian territory was a “particularly important one”.
“Without making any comparison between Russia’s aggression and Israel … it is clear the Palestinian people are under a regime of oppression – a regime of occupation and a regime of apartheid,” Callamard told Al Jazeera.
Over the last three days, X users recirculated earlier statements calling out what they called Western hypocrisy, sharing video by the Irish lawmaker Richard Boyd Barrett from March 2022 in which he berated the Irish government’s double standards regarding Ukraine and Palestine:
“You’re happy to use the most strong and robust language to describe the crimes against humanity of [Russian President] Vladimir Putin, but you will not use the same strength of language when it comes to describing Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians.”
Barrett on Sunday again called out what he described as “shocking double standards of Western leaders supporting Ukraine resistance but condemning Palestinian[s].”
Meanwhile, others warned against comparing conflicts.
https://twitter.com/denfordauthor/status/1710993737738768607?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1710993737738768607%7Ctwgr%5E6acf829869e993177f32aa38aa48c02f38cb7f61%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.aljazeera.com%2Fnews%2F2023%2F10%2F9%2Fwestern-leaders-accused-of-hypocrisy-over-response-to-palestine-ukraine
And some cautioned that Hamas and the Palestinians should not be seen as one and the same.
Just to clarify:
Palestine did not mount an attack on Israel. An Iranian proxy militia did. Palestinians are by and large huddled in their homes praying that an Israeli airstrike won't kill them or theirs. Hamas is the culprit here. This isn't a decentralized grassroots thing.
— Romeo Kokriatski (@VagrantJourno) October 9, 2023
Ukrainian footballer Oleksandr Zinchenko, who plays for Arsenal, posted on Instagram, stating he “stands with Israel”.
Zinchenko has been a vocal supporter of his home country in its ongoing defence against Russia, and he participated in a Game4Ukraine charity match in London earlier this year to raise money for Ukraine.
After online backlash, with some questioning an alleged double standard in his support of Israel, the footballer removed the post and switched his social media account to private.
Several people claimed that Zinchenko’s football club, in not responding to his comments, was guilty of hypocrisy after they had distanced themselves from former player Mesut Ozil’s comments in 2019 over alleged human rights abuses against Uighur Muslims in China.
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