Latifa, who claimed that her father had her held in solitary confinement, in the dark, beaten and sedated over a period of several years when she was in her teens and early twenties (allegations which have been denied), fled the United Arab Emirates on a chartered yacht, but was recaptured off the coast of India a week later.
The yacht used in Princess Latifa's escape attempt
Data reviewed by the Bureau shows that a series of signals designed to reveal phone location were sent to a US-registered mobile belonging to the yacht's skipper, Hervé Jaubert, the day before commandos stormed the yacht and seized the princess. The effort appears to have been part of a huge bid by the Emiratis – mobilising boats, a surveillance plane and electronic means – to track down the fleeing princess. Signals were sent via mobile networks in Jersey, Guernsey, Cameroon, Israel, Laos and the USA.
It is impossible to know if SS7 was the key to locating the yacht: Jaubert told the Bureau that he did not have this phone with him at the time, and that even if successfully compromised it could not have revealed his location.
