A trove of evidence from Britain that became public only after the FBI closed its 9/11 investigation raises questions about a Saudi man who assisted two of the hijackers.
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who → become → hijackers
- Suspicions: Material seized in 2001 from Omar al-Bayoumi, a Saudi student who had lived in San Diego, intensified suspicions about what he knew before the attacks.
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he → seize → attacks
The FBI’s leadership has long insisted that Bayoumi, who was a Saudi intelligence asset, had no clue about the plans of the two men who ended up on Flight 77.
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who → insist → Flight
These highlights were written by the reporters and editors who worked on this story.
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who → write → story
Within a few days of the terror attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people on Sept. 11, 2001, FBI agents identified an important possible suspect: a middle-aged Saudi graduate student who provided crucial help to two of the al-Qaida hijackers as they settled in San Diego early the year before.
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they → kill → Diego
The Saudi, Omar al-Bayoumi, had since moved to England, and he was arrested there at the FBI’s request.
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he → move → request
A police search of his home and office yielded a trove of evidence that quickly deepened investigators’ suspicions about Bayoumi and his dealings with the terrorists.
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that → yield → terrorists
But what happened to much of that evidence after it was delivered to the FBI remains a mystery.
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it → happen → FBI
Bayoumi was questioned and released by British police and later returned to Saudi Arabia.
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Bayoumi → question → Arabia
For years thereafter, the FBI would insist he wasn’t really a suspect at all — that Bayoumi had met the hijackers by chance, had helped them unwittingly and seemed nothing like a militant Islamist.
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Bayoumi → insist → Islamist
As the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks is marked Friday, questions about how the FBI handled Bayoumi’s case have only grown, driven in part by evidence that was seized from him in 2001 but not made public for years or even shared with field agents who sought to investigate his role.
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who → mark → role
That evidence and other FBI information, now filed in a federal lawsuit against the Saudi government by victims of the attacks, has undercut both Bayoumi’s claims of innocence and the FBI’s profile of him as a genial, pro-American civil servant.
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evidence → file → servant
While he was living publicly as a student, it shows, Bayoumi worked closely with Saudi religious officials, operated as a Saudi intelligence asset and collaborated with several clerics who would later emerge as militant Islamists tied to al-Qaida.
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who → live → Qaida
This week, representatives of the 9/11 families are again demanding an end to what they have called the Justice Department’s silence about what happened to the Bayoumi evidence and why he and other Saudis were not more aggressively pursued.
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he → demand → evidence
The families have also questioned whether the Trump administration — which has strengthened U.S. diplomatic and business ties to the Saudi royal family — is committed to pursuing the truth about the possible role of Saudi officials.
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which → question → officials
“We still have not been given the full picture of what happened,” said Kathleen Zapata, whose father, Joseph Coppo, was killed in the World Trade Center.
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father → give → Center
“Why are we having to fight against our own government simply to get answers about the most horrible attack ever on American soil?”
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we → have → soil
A White House spokesperson said, “President Trump is leading the most transparent administration in history, and his team is working diligently on identifying records that are responsive to these families’ request.”
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that → say → request
A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment, noting that many of the officials involved in the early 9/11 investigation no longer work for the government.
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many → decline → government
While former Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Joe Biden are expected to attend a ceremony at the 9/11 memorial in New York, President Donald Trump has said he will commemorate the anniversary separately at the Pentagon.
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he → expect → Pentagon
The Saudi government has long denied any role in the attacks, often citing FBI and CIA statements that the royal family was an enemy of al-Qaida and its Saudi-born leader, Osama bin Laden.
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family → deny → Qaida
A spokesperson for the Saudi Embassy in Washington did not return messages asking for comment, including a request to speak to Bayoumi.
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spokesperson → return → Bayoumi
From San Diego to Dulles International Airport
A ProPublica examination of how the FBI handled the Bayoumi evidence shows that questions surrounding the Saudi connections to the 9/11 plot date to Jan. 15, 2000, when the first two hijackers landed in Los Angeles on a flight from Bangkok.
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hijackers → handle → Bangkok
The CIA had followed the two men, Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar, as they met with other Qaida operatives in Malaysia days before.
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they → follow → Malaysia
But the agency said it lost track of them when they flew to Thailand and then entered the United States using their real names and Saudi passports.
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they → say → names
(The CIA did not inform the FBI of their presence in the United States until Aug. 24, 2001, according to the report of the 9/11 Commission.)
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CIA → inform → Commission
Unlike several Qaida operatives who led the hijacking teams, Mihdhar and Hazmi spoke no English and knew almost nothing of life in a Western society.
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Mihdhar → lead → society
The mastermind of the plot, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, told CIA interrogators he advised them to seek help from Muslim communities in California, according to the 9/11 Commission.
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he → tell → Commission
But the commission and many U.S. terrorism experts expressed skepticism that he would deploy such ill-equipped operatives without providing them with any contacts in the United States.
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he → express → States
Bayoumi claimed his meeting with the hijackers was happenstance.
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meeting → claim → hijackers
After driving from San Diego on Feb. 1, 2000, he said, he had a meeting at the Saudi Consulate in Los Angeles and then went to a nearby halal cafe.
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he → drive → cafe
There, he later told the FBI, he overheard Hazmi and Mihdhar speaking Gulf-accented Arabic and introduced himself.
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Hazmi → tell → himself
Seeking to be hospitable, he said, he told them they might want to try San Diego.
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they → seek → Diego
Shortly after the men stepped off a bus there three days later, Bayoumi said, he happened to run into them again at a local mosque.
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he → step → mosque
The next day, he arranged for them to rent an apartment in the building where he lived with his family, co-signed their lease and set up a bank account for them, briefly loaning them about $1,500 for the deposit.
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he → arrange → deposit
He went on to introduce them to more than two dozen local men who helped them in various ways.
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who → go → ways
The FBI had already looked closely at Bayoumi, launching a preliminary investigation in 1998 after neighbors reported what they said were suspicious gatherings of young Arab men at his apartment.
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they → look → apartment
That inquiry determined that Bayoumi, who had worked for the Saudi civil aviation ministry, was still receiving a generous government stipend through an aviation company for which he did no work.
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he → determine → work
The investigation found no criminal activity, however, and it was closed after six months, officials said.
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officials → find → months
Barely a week after the 9/11 attacks, the FBI asked the British authorities to arrest Bayoumi in Birmingham, England, where he had begun graduate business studies at Aston University.
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he → ask → University
…and 81 more, not listed.
The Aporia
