Recent photos appeared on Instagram showing Princess Latifa on holiday in Spain with friends – but the story around her sister who hasn’t been seen in 21 years remains shrouded in mystery.
Many know the story of Princess Latifa but fewer people are aware of the mystery surrounding her sister Shamsa, now 39.
For 21 years no one has seen Shamsa.
When she was just a teen she penned a letter detailing how she wanted to escape her life behind the palace walls.
Barely a few months later, aged 18, she tried to run away from the royal family’s sprawling Surrey home.
(Image: www.latifa.info)
In August 2000, she stole a black Range Rover and drove it to the edge of the estate, before abandoning the car and running away on foot.
The hunt for the princess lasted two months before she was allegedly kidnapped “kicking and screaming” from the streets of Cambridge and returned to Dubai.
The Sunday Times revealed how the princess described her life trapped behind the palace walls in a letter .
In the letter, she wrote: “I was thinking of running away. I know that won’t solve any of my problems – that’s why I considered talking to my mother again. But now I’ve realised that I’m still not fulfilled!”
She added: “Don’t worry, you’re not giving me ideas and you’re not encouraging me to do anything.
(Image: www.latifa.info)
“All I’m saying is that I’ve made up my mind and there’s nothing left for me to do here.
She admitted to having suicidal thoughts only a few months before the letter and would vanish a few months later.
Then, in an exclusive interview with the Sunday Mirror , the top cop in charge of investigating her disappearance said that he has no idea why he was prevented from investigating the disappearance.
Retired DCI David Beck wondered aloud whether “other motives” had led to him being prevented from finding out what had happened.
Mr Beck claimed he was prevented from travelling to the UAE because of “significant sensitivities” involving Sheikh Mohammed, 71.
On top of that, a woman who worked with Dubai’s royals claimed to News.AU that Shamsa has been tortured, jailed and drugged as well as attempting suicide three times in the years since she vanished.
Ms Jauhiainen was hired to teach Shamsa’s sister, Princess Latifa, capoeira in 2001.
She would later try to help her escape as the pair grew closer.
Ms Jauhiainen said: “She was locked up in a room in her mother’s house … she has been (kept) drugged up.”
She says she saw Princess Shamsa twice.
First at the royal family’s private sporting complex in 2001, where Ms Jauhiainen said, “She seemed dazed and very unhappy.
(Image: www.latifa.info)
“She looked uncomfortable and sad and she was waiting for her PT to arrive. She looked very, very unwell.
“The second time I saw her was at (another) sister’s wedding in 2016.
“Shamsa had lost so much weight that she was unrecognisable, she looked like an anorexic, extremely skinny and Latifah told me that she had actually stopped eating. She was like a zombie.”
In a video recorded before Princess Latifa fled Dubai in 2018, she said that both she and Princess Shamsa had been tortured.
She said, “Basically one guy was holding me while the other guy was beating me and they did that repeatedly.
“The next time I was tortured it was for five hours and I was pulled from the bed, driven to another location in the palace and they tortured me.”
The many questions hanging over Princess Shamsa’s fate still remain unanswered, even whilst Princess Latifa seems to have achieved a modicum of freedom in the new Instagram photos.
Radha Stirling, founder of Detained in Dubai, who was called on by Captain Herve Jaubert and Princess Latifa for help when the US boat she was onboard was attacked, spoke out about the latest photos.
She said, “We are pleased to see Latifa enjoying increased freedom and time in Europe with friends after what has been a complex three year long campaign.”
“But a few photos of Latifa does not conclude the matter.”