Laleh Shahravesh, 55, was arrested in Dubai and is facing two years in prison
At face value, Laleh Shahravesh appears to be the victim of a very raw deal. Arrested after she landed in Dubai last month with her 14-year-old daughter and then stripped of her passport, the 55-year-old British mother is now facing up to two years in prison and a £50,000 fine.
Her crime? Penning a couple of spiteful Facebook posts three years ago about her ex-husband’s much younger new wife.
On the surface, it seems like petty stuff. Unceremoniously dumped by her husband Pedro Correia Dos Santos, Miss Shahravesh wrote online that his glamorous new Tunisian wife, Samah, looked like a ‘horse’ after their sumptuous wedding in Dubai in August 2016.
Her ex-husband, she added, was an ‘idiot’ for abandoning her.
Now detained against her will and forcibly separated from her teenage daughter, who was allowed to return to the UK, her case has been met with much sympathy among those who have surmised that she has fallen foul of an Arab kingdom with a draconian criminal justice system and over-zealous cyber crime laws. But, as the Mail discovered this week, there is rather more to this sorry saga than meets the eye.
For while Ms Shahravesh, from Richmond, Surrey, claims she is being ‘destroyed mentally’ and feels as if she is ‘slowly dying’ as she awaits a court appearance on Thursday, we can reveal that the truth about this familial feud is far more complex than had been revealed.
Nor is her arrest the first time she has had run-ins with the police in relation to her ex-husband, a 51-year-old HSBC risk manager who died unexpectedly last month after suffering a heart attack.
For while she was detained by officials after flying to the United Arab Emirate with her daughter Paris — she claims they wanted to ‘pay their respects’ at Pedro’s grave — his 42-year-old second wife says that she and her husband had been subjected to a barrage of foul-mouthed ‘vicious abuse’ and threats by an embittered Ms Shahravesh.
After she landed in Dubai last month with her 14-year-old daughter she was stripped of her passport, and is now facing up to two years in prison and a £50,000 fine
On the surface, it may seem as though Ms Shahravesh is getting a raw deal. Unceremoniously dumped by her husband Pedro Correia Dos Santos, Miss Shahravesh wrote online that his glamorous new Tunisian wife, Samah, looked like a ‘horse’ after their sumptuous wedding in Dubai in August 2016
She claims that Ms Shahravesh sent abusive emails to her husband’s relatives and HSBC work colleagues, and that her husband only complained to police in Dubai in desperation after she refused to listen to warnings by British police officers to stop posting abusive messages online. ‘She is acting as a victim to save herself from the law — I am a victim, not her,’ Samah al Hammadi told the Mail in an exclusive interview in Dubai. She says that the stress from the abuse caused her husband great suffering.
‘She has affected my reputation and my life. She has affected the reputation of my husband even after his death. She needs to put this right and clean up her mess.’
Evidence shown to this newspaper certainly appears to suggest that there is another side to this sorry story. In other Facebook posts seen by the Mail, Ms Shahravesh called Samah a ‘disgusting hoar (sic)’ and ‘an evil mean speck of nothing’ and accused her of committing adultery — something which Samah, who is Muslim, denies.
In one she wrote: ‘Don’t pretend you are special! You are nothing! Zip your ugly mouth!’
In another: ‘Let the whole world know that YOUR husband left MY daughter and I here destitute and in debt. He LEFT US OVERNIGHT WITHOUT ONE WORD! He hugged us both, said bye see you in a few weeks and LEFT!
‘Oh and he was probably seeing you the last time I saw him! Guess what WE SHARED THE SAME BED! Live with that now.’
At other times, Ms Shahravesh, who used to work for London auctioneers Bonhams, posted several photos of herself and her husband with his face obliterated with red pen.
In a message to him she wrote: ‘Go to purgatory because Satan doesn’t like c***s. In fact he despises them.’
Such was the level of abuse that Mr Correia Dos Santos felt he had to contact British police. A spokesman for Scotland Yard has confirmed that the late Mr Correia Dos Santos, a former Portuguese archery champion, contacted them in October 2015 claiming that he was being harassed by his ex-wife. After both parties were spoken to, no further action was taken though.
The emails Pedro sent and received from Scotland Yard, however, clearly suggest that Ms Shahravesh’s treatment at the hands of the authorities in Dubai is not just because of a couple of trivial, three-year-old Facebook posts.
In one, sent in August 2016, he wrote: ‘Since she found out that I have re-married, her verbally abusive behaviour started again, with more intensity this time.’
The trouble appears to have begun in 2015 when Ms Shahravesh, who had been living in Dubai with her husband for eight months, returned to the UK with their daughter.
At the time, she and Pedro had been married for around 18 years. It was Ms Shahravesh’s second marriage. A doctor’s daughter, she was born in Iran but came to live in the UK as a young girl and was educated privately at Tormead School in Guildford, Surrey.
Ms Shahravesh claims that she returned to the UK expecting her husband to follow. Instead, a few months later, in 2016, she received divorce papers.
In fact, Pedro first complained to police in London about his wife’s behaviour in October 2015.
Ms Shahravesh wrote a comment on a Facebook picture of her ex-husband’s second wedding to say: ‘You married a horse you idiot’
As soon as Laleh and her daughter landed in Dubai on March 10, intending to stay for five days, they were arrested at the airport
In an email sent to him that month, a Scotland Yard detective told him: ‘Laleh became very distressed after I put the allegation to her, claiming that it’s difficult for her as you have left her and your ten-year-old child so she believes she is entitled to tell “the world” about it.
‘I explained to her that sending messages and emails to your family and work colleagues is totally unacceptable and that if it continues she WILL be arrested.
‘I have advised her that you do not want any contact and that all contact should go through your solicitors. I have also spoken with her solicitor … and emphasised the importance of Laleh abiding by this.’
But if Ms Shahravesh was furious at being abandoned by her husband, she was even more angry when she discovered he had married Samah al Hammadi, a Tunisian archery coach and highly skilled sportswoman.
The pair are believed to have met at the club she runs in Dubai, Sam Archery Academy, and bonded over their shared love of the sport.
She denies claims that she had an affair with Pedro while he was still with Ms Shahravesh. Their romance was conducted with decorum, she says. Pedro came to her parents’ house after his divorce was finalised and asked for her hand in marriage.
‘They were separated for a year before the divorce procedure so he didn’t abandon her to marry directly,’ she told the Mail this week. ‘I am a Muslim. I don’t do such things.’
After the wedding in Dubai in July 2016, an enraged Ms Shahravesh wrote abusive posts next to an official wedding photograph posted on Facebook a month later.
The posts were written in the Persian language, Farsi, and translated they read as ‘Damn you. You left me for this horse,’ and ‘I hope you go under the ground, you idiot’.
Ms Shahravesh, left, and her daughter Paris, right, have been separated for almost a month
Soon after, Pedro complained to Scotland Yard again: ‘Regrettably it has happened again, now targeting several persons using Facebook as a means to attack people.
‘Since she found out that I have remarried, her verbally abusive behaviour started again even with more intensity this time.
‘Last time you asked me if I wanted her to be arrested and at that point I suggested that a telephone contact would be sufficient.
‘At this point I think she needs to be taken for questioning, mainly to understand that her behaviour is not legally accepted and that if she continues it can have further consequences from various perspectives.’
It is not clear if Scotland Yard took further action, but Ms al Hammadi says they decided to make a formal complaint in Dubai after ‘suffering in silence’ for over a year.
‘She has been abusing him, sending him emails, even to his boss in the bank, saying I am a b****, that I took him from her, that she doesn’t have money. He sent emails asking her to stop. It did not stop.’
Her husband and his new wife Samah Al Hammadi (pictured) were living in Dubai when the Facebook posts were made in October 2016
Speaking of her husband she said: ‘He didn’t want her to be arrested in front of her daughter so he asked for the police in the UK to give her a warning. But when she kept doing the same thing and was insulting us via emails we made the case in Dubai.’
Unbeknown to her, immigration authorities in Dubai had an outstanding arrest warrant following the 2016 complaint. Ms Shahravesh was arrested as soon as she arrived on March 10 and her passport was confiscated.
She has been living in a hotel in Dubai ever since and says she has racked up £5,000 in debts. She has also lost her job in a homeless shelter because of her absence.
She spoke tearfully this week of the anguish she is suffering after being forcibly separated from her teenage daughter.
‘I have never been apart from my daughter for so long,’ she said. ‘The thought of being away from her even longer does not bear thinking about. I am being destroyed mentally and I feel as if I am slowly dying. Never in a million years did I think I would find myself in this situation over something that was written three years ago.
‘My life is in ruins. I am told I could go to jail but all I want to do is go home and give my daughter Paris a big hug.
Her ordeal began on March 14 when Laleh and her daughter flew to Dubai’s for her ex husband Pedro’s funeral
She admits sending messages and emails, including to her husband’s boss at HSBC, but said it was because she was left without money.
She also insisted that the messages were sent to her husband — and not his new wife. ‘I went from having what I thought was a happy marriage to being alone with no money,’ she said. ‘Pedro refused to help out financially. He even sent the divorce papers on a WhatsApp message the first time.’
She said that despite the acrimonious split, she had reconciled with her ex and he visited them at their rented home in Surrey last year.
‘We had dinner and he talked about coming over from Dubai to see Paris more often,’ she said.
‘There was no mention of the Facebook post. He would have known I was angry at the time, but it was all forgotten. I still had so much love for my husband, even though we were no longer together.
‘I know he would not want us to be going through this ordeal. He would not want his daughter to suffer like she is. She is going to need therapy to get over this.’
Back in Britain, a family member said they have appealed to the British Embassy for help but have been told by officials that they cannot intervene.
Paris has also written to the ruler of Dubai, Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, asking him to ‘Please, please return my mother’s passport and let her come home.’
The case has been taken up by the human rights organisation, Detained in Dubai. According to CEO Radha Stirling, the cybercrime laws in the UAE are so vague ‘that even the police are powerless to interpret them responsibly.
‘The Public Prosecutor should have rejected the case if for no other reason than to clarify that the cybercrime laws should deal with matters of genuine public endangerment; hate speech, incitement to violence, and so on; and are not to be applied in petty matters of personal disputes and injured egos.’
She added: ‘Laleh had a right to her feelings, and a right to express them, and neither Ms Hammadi nor the UAE government has the right to punish her for anything she said outside the UAE.
‘What is criminal is throwing a single mother in prison for expressing her feelings, and separating her from her daughter, in vengeance for a bruised ego.’
Laleh Sharavesh was arrested along with her 14-year-old daughter Paris when she arrived in the Arab kingdom for her ex’s funeral last month
Ms al Hammadi, however, says that the distress caused to herself and her late husband was much worse than this.
‘He was suffering deeply and in silence. My husband was very sad in his last years because of this and how it affected his relationship with his daughter,’ she said.
‘Pedro was a wonderful and very kind person. He died in front of me in hospital. He removed his oxygen mask in his last moments to say, “I love you”.’
She says she will consider dropping the case if Ms Shahravesh apologises to her on social media and gives a written statement to the court guaranteeing she won’t do it again.
Ms Shahravesh will have to wait until tomorrow’s court appearance to find out if she will be shown mercy and allowed to leave Dubai.
Whatever the next twist in this sorry situation, she must regret ever sending the messages that have landed her in this mess.
For while it may be true that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, for Laleh, hell is surely the situation she now finds herself in: unable to go home to her daughter and facing the prospect of jail.