T
iina Jauhiainen is looking down at
her now-cold tea. “I wish I’d said
something to her when they were
taking her away,” she says. We are
in a cafe in central London, but
Tiina’s mind is 8000km away in the Arabian
Sea, reliving the night of March 4, 2018, when
she attempted to help her best friend escape
from her family. “There were guns everywhere.
Latifa was screaming and kicking. But I was
paralysed with fear. I couldn’t say a word.” She
pauses. “I just wish that I’d said, ‘I’m sorry this
has failed.’ That I’d told her I love her.”
That was the last time that Tiina, 42, saw
Latifa bint Mohammed Al Maktoum, the
33-year-old daughter of Mohammed bin
Rashid Al Maktoum, ruler of Dubai and theprime minister of the United Arab Emirates.
The women were captured and separately
taken back to Dubai – the emirate from
which they had been trying to escape. But
while Tiina was released after a fortnight,
Latifa’s whereabouts are still unknown.
In a meticulously planned escape attempt
that Latifa had been plotting for seven years,
the women fled Dubai via car, dinghy, jet skis
and a yacht, with the goal of making it
to India. From there, Latifa could fly to
the US and claim asylum.
“People think, ‘She’s a princess, how bad
could her life be?’” says Tiina. “She did have
access to money, but that was just a distraction
from her reality. She wasn’t allowed to study,
to work, to travel – or even go to a friend’sTIINA JAUHIAINEN tried to help her
best friend, Emirati PRINCESS LATIFA,
escape from her STIFLING EXISTENCE
as the daughter of Dubai’s ruler. But in a
DRAMATIC INTERVENTION at sea, the
princess was CAPTURED and RETURNED
to the UAE. A year later, Tiina is
CAMPAIGNING for her FREEDOM,
reports Radhika Sanghani
I WON’T REST
UNTIL SHE’S FREE
‘
’
(^70) | marieclaire.com.au