Saima Ahmed: help sought after Edinburgh remains identified

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DETECTIVES investigating the mysterious death of a woman on the outskirts of the Capital believe the Edinburgh public could hold the key to the riddle.

The grisly find, which was unearthed in a patch of woodland between the grounds of the £4 million Gogar Mount House and Gogarburn Golf Club, has stumped detectives and her family. Now officers are appealing to taxi drivers, train commuters and tram passengers for possible sightings of Saima – who is thought to have travelled up from London by rail – to establish how she found herself in Gogar, close to the A8 Glasgow Road.

Last month’s grim discovery sparked a major police operation as detectives used forensic techniques and DNA analysis to trace the identity of the body, with the search spilling over on to Gogarburn Golf Club.

Yesterday, officers revealed the remains belonged to 36-year-old Saima, from Wembley, who was reported missing by her family in August last year. Her death is currently being treated as unexplained. But the mystery has only deepened – as the close-knit family of Saima, a part-time librarian and shop worker, insist she had no connections to Edinburgh and no reason to be in the city.

Saima Ahmed on CCTV. Picture: Police Scotland

Police Scotland has now launched a massive UK-wide appeal for information as they seek to solve the enigma of her final hours. Officers insist that while there is no evidence of criminality, they remain “open-minded” about her fate. But efforts to crack the case will be fraught with difficulty.

A former top murder squad detective told the News that human remains left out in the open could deteriorate into a “semi-skeletal” state within a matter of weeks.

He said the warm, humid weather over September and October last year – combined with the fact the body was found in woodland – would have quickened the process of decay, making officers’ jobs “much, much harder”.

And he revealed the “scattering” of bodies by foxes and other animals was another “very common” obstacle detectives would be up against.