THE family of a missing librarian who was found dead in Edinburgh months after going missing from her London home has made a fresh appeal for information after growing frustrated over a lack of progress in an 18 month police probe.
The death of Saima Ahmed remains unexplained after her body was discovered in the Scottish capital - 400 miles from her Wembley home - in January, last year.
The remains of Ms Ahmed, 36, were found on Saturday, January 9 at Gogar Mount House, on the edge of Gogarburn Golf Club and fully recovered on Monday January 11.
But with Ms Ahmed having no known links to Scotland and with post-mortem examinations resulting in an "unascertainable" cause of death, the death remains an unsolved puzzle.
Her brother Sadat admitted that there was frustration as there had been been no positive progress in the case. "We are nowhere at the moment," he said. "We have no idea still what happened, we don't know what is going on, my parents have no idea, and it is difficult without any answers.
"We are still looking for information about what happened to her. Nothing has been resolved yet.
"The way it stands is that the police still don't know what has happened," he said.
Ms Ahmed was last seen on August 30 on CCTV, boarding a train at Wembley Central station instead of going to work.
Detectives believe she took further trains to Edinburgh, likely via Hemel Hempstead and Birmingham, although her exact route is not known.
There was an unconfirmed sighting of her at Portobello Beach around the end of August.
Ms Ahmed's family were unaware of any friends or contacts she might have had in the area, or any plans to travel to Scotland. They say they do not believe she had even been north of the border before and do not think she took her own life.
Mr Ahmed, a 34-year-old IT consultant, said: “We are no closer to knowing what she was doing in Edinburgh. There are no family links to Edinburgh, we know nothing about the area.
"We have no idea why she travelled to Edinburgh. The fact is that this was not a short journey and nobody has been in contact [to say they saw her] is surprising.
"I am not too sure what happens now. They continue with the investigation, and we will continue to make appeals as and when we can."
Five Metropolitan Police officers are facing a misconduct investigation over the case.
Family members claimed that Met officers failed to take the case seriously despite Saima’s disappearance being “totally out of character”.
The IPCC notified five officers they were under investigation, two for gross misconduct and three for misconduct, over the way they handled information and conducted the investigation.
Police Scotland said in January that to date, no suspicious circumstances surrounding Saima's death have been discovered.
Det Ch Insp Martin MacLean said three months ago: "I am determined to provide Saima's family with the answers they crave and whilst, at this time, I have no evidence of any criminality, I still do not know why Saima travelled to Edinburgh, where she was intending to visit or whom she planned to meet with.
"I thank those who have helped us thus far, but I believe someone out there will have seen Saima during her time in the city or knows why she visited the capital and I would ask that person, or persons, to contact police immediately.
"In addition, anyone with any further information at all relevant to this ongoing investigation is also asked to get in touch."
Detectives believe she bought a Birmingham to Edinburgh rail ticket at Birmingham New Street Station at about 17:00 on Sunday 30 August 2015.
Officers said there was a strong possibility she then boarded one of two Edinburgh-bound services - either the 17:15 Virgin service due to arrive at Edinburgh Waverley at 22:22, or the 13:30 Virgin Cross Country Network (via York), which was due to arrive at 22:21.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here