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Omar al-Bayoumi
Last Updated: October 14, 2008

The FBI first investigated Saudi Omar al-Bayoumi in 1998—the reason why is redacted in U.S. government reports—and found ties to an overseas imam with al Qaeda connections, and others also under investigation. His own writings, they found, were “jihadist.”

In 2000, two future 9/11 hijackers arrived at Bayoumi’s San Diego apartment. He claimed he’d met them accidentally, then became their host and facilitator for many months to come. During that time, Bayoumi's bank deposits increased more than $100,000 over the previous year. Most all of it came from Saudi Royalty.

Through his employment and personal history, Bayoumi connects to a glaring web of relationships which, if not all somehow coincidental, are traceable directly to the highest levels of the Bush White House, as well as its closest Saudi associates.

On February 1, 2000, Bayoumi traveled to Los Angeles for an unexplained meeting at the Saudi Consulate, and went afterward to a restaurant.

At a nearby table, he says, he overheard hijackers Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hamzi speaking in Arabic. Then and there, Bayoumi invited the two strangers to come stay at his apartment in San Diego, showing what he called traditional hospitality.

His generosity was immediately accepted. Hamzi and Mihdhar lived in Bayoumi’s apartment until he moved them into an apartment of their own, co-signed their lease, paid their deposit with a certified check (which he says they repaid him in cash), and threw them a party to meet the local Islamic leaders.

Their landlord of the apartment Bayoumi moved them into was also an FBI informant named Abdussaddar Shaikh, who later was blocked by the Bureau from testifying before the 911 Congressional Committee. His FBI handler, Steven Butler, did testify, privately, after the FBI failed to block his appearance too.

Agent Butler said Shaikh had been vague about his two new tenants, but that he, Butler, had reported their suspicious money flows and visits with others “of interest” to his superiors. Agent Butler said he never received instructions to follow up.

Several of Sheikh’s neighbors later told reporters they’d often seen limousines pulling up at night, and that they’d identified FBI photos of visitors who turned out to be two other 911 hijackers.

Within weeks of the hijackers’ arrival Bayoumi’s wife started depositing monthly $2,000-$3,000 cashier’s checks from the wife of Prince Bandar Bush family close friend and business associate, as well as Saudi Ambassador to the U.S.

The checks came through Riggs Bank in DC, where that same year George HW Bush’s brother Jonathan became a Division President. The Washington Post reported that Jonathan Bush had “little involvement” in the Saudi royal accounts, though he had represented them privately before joining Riggs. In 2004 Riggs was fined $25 million for failing to report tens of millions of dollars in suspicious transactions by the Saudi Embassy.

Prince Bandar’s wife’s checks were payable to the wife of their neighbor Osama Basnan, also then under investigation for terrorist ties.The Princess said the checks were sent because she heard Basnan’s wife was sick. They were endorsed and deposited into the Bayoumis’ account.

In April 2002, Basnan would travel to to Houston and meet with members of Saudi Royals entourage while on their way to meet President Bush at his Texas ranch.

Even before his arrival in San Diego—which U.S. authorities say may have been as early as 1994— Omar al- Bayoumii was on the payroll of the Saudi Government’s Civil Aviation Authority. In San Diego, the Authority checks kept coming, for Bayoumi’s now no-show job at $500 per month. That amount jumped to over $4,000 per month with the hijackers in 2000.

The Saudi Civil Aviation Authority official who signed Bayoumi’s checks had a son whose picture was found in an Al-Qaeda safehouse

Bayoumi was contracted to the Authority through the Dallah Avco company, a Saudi conglomerate where he’d been listed as assistant to one of its finance directors.

Dallah Avco’s CEO is Saleh Kamel , whose name appears on a list (titled The Golden Chain), seized during a terror funding raid in Bosnia, identifying Al Qaeda’s top 20 funders.

Saleh Kamel’s name also pops up in the world of both the GOP and US based terror financing. He was a client of the notorious—and now imprisoned—lobbyist Jack Abramoff in 2002. In April 2004, the Islamic Free Market Institute, headed by Abramoff pal and GOP power broker Grover Norquist, paid for Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-CA) to meet Kamel at a conference in Bahrain. The Arab News trumpeted that Sensenbrenner pledged to promote understanding of Islamic banking in the US.

Part of the Islamic Free Market Institute’s seed money came from Abdurahman Alamoudi, often seen in two person photos with President George W., who is now serving 23 years for terror financing and plotting to assassinate Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah.

Saleh Kamel and Alamoudi invested in a company called BMI, later described by US officials as a terror funding front, along with with three soon to be Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGT) named Yassin Al Qadi, Soliman Biheiri and Mousa Marzook.

Al Qadi, living in the US in 1998, was declared a major terror funder by Robert Wright, the FBI’s bin Laden Unit chief. Wright had enough evidence to call for Al Qadi’s arrest and for his assets frozen. He was turned down flat by the FBI’s top brass and warned to end his investigation.

BMI founder Soliman Biheiri was indicted on multiple terror related charges in 2003, but ultimately was sentenced to one year in prison for passport falsification.

Mousa Marzook was BMI President, and also political head of Hamas, the Palestinian Terrorist group.

BMI and its principals sent between $9-$13 million to Al Qadi’s software company named Ptech, formed in 1994, then somehow contracted to manage the top secret IT systems throughout the US Government ‘s most critical agencies.

Al Qadi’s powerful software was reportedly a modified, stealth-invasive version of PROMIS software, found by Congress and Federal Courts to have been fraudulently privatized by former Attorney General Edwin Meese and his cohort Earl Brian.

During the ‘90s Ptech was installed in the Departments of State, Defense, Justice, Transportation, Homeland Security, Congress and the White House itself.

Ptech, o program was in control of the FAA’s operating system on September 11, 2001. Al Qadi was designated a Global Terrorist one month later, on October 11.

The Joint Congressional 911 Report outlined many of Omar al-Bayoumi’s known activities, though its Co-Chairmen charged lack of cooperation and even obstruction by the FBI. Co-Chair Senator Bob Graham stated it was clear that Bayoumi and Basnan were both Saudi intelligence agents.

White House lawyers redacted 28 pages of the Congressional report, as well as the subsequent 911 Commission Report. Later leaks revealed the pages were mainly about Bayoumi and Saudi Arabia funding of Al Qaeda. Bush refused to declassify the pages, saying that would “make it harder for us to win the war on terror.”

There are conflicting reports of when Bayoumi left the US, sometime before Septmber 2001. From England he went to Saudi Arabia. When the FBI first reportedly asked to interview Bayoumi, the Saudis were said to refuse, eventually relenting in 2003.

Bayoumi is still believed to reside in Saudi Arabia. He was never charged with any wrongdoing. His wife, however, was ultimately arrested and convicted…for shoplifting at J.C. Penney.

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