Princess Latifah's friend Tina was desperate for any information about Latifah.

She spent her days trying to publicize Latifah's case, talking to reporters,

lobbying the UN, appealing for help from human rights groups.

But all this time she had no word from Latifah herself.

All she had were these three peculiar photographs.

The photos that were taken of Latifah having lunch with the former UN High Commissioner

for Human Rights Mary Robinson.

But then one day Tina got a message from a stranger, a maid who worked where the princess was being held.

The maid had taken pity on Latifah.

She took photographs of letters Latifah wrote and passed them on to Tina.

So she would obviously destroy the letters.

She would flush them from the toilet or I don't know what, as soon as she had sent them to me.

Then she was sometimes like, I'm so nervous that I'm throwing up.

I'm so nervous that I'm shaking here in the toilet.

If she had gotten caught there, they would have never let her out.

Imagine what could have happened to her.

Yeah, it doesn't bad thinking about. My colleague Heidi Blake at the New Yorker got copies of Latifah's letters.

They tell the story of where Latifah was in the year that no one heard from her, after her father sent commandos to bring her

back to Dubai. Latif's family was insisting that she was happy at home, receiving

loving care.

But when Latifah finally made contact with her friends, she sent them detailed accounts of

what had really happened to her.

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