Kidnapping case: what happened to Sheikh Mohammed's daughters?
Two decades ago, 19-year-old Princess Shamsa was snatched from the street in Cambridge.
She and two friends had visited a bar. Later that evening, a car pulled up and, by her account, at least four armed men were inside. She claimed they were Dubai nationals from Sheikh Mohammed’s personal staff. Shamsa said she was ordered into the car, driven to a property in Newmarket and flown to Dubai by private jet the next day.
These events in August 2000 triggered a police investigation, accusations of diplomatic interference and questions about the behaviour of one of the UK’s most distinguished royal visitors.
The previous month, Shamsa had fled the Longcross estate near Chobham, Surrey, where her father – Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, the vice-president and prime minister of the United Arab Emirates and ruler of Dubai – had installed the family for the summer. Her mother, Houria Ahmed Lamara, is Algerian.
Slipping through an open gate to Chobham Common, Shamsa made her way from Surrey to a temporary hostel in south London. She went to see an immigration solicitor and sought advice about remaining in Britain.
She then travelled to Cambridge, from where she was abducted. In an email
