Omar al-Bayoumi (1959-) was a suspected agent of Saudi Arabia who was responsible for helping Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar in moving from Los Angeles to San Diego, California before the 9/11 attacks.
Biography[]
Omar al-Bayoumi was born in 1959, and he worked at the Ministry of Defense and Aviation in Saudi Arabia under Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz before settling down in San Diego, California in the United States in August 1994. He was always inquisitive and frequently carried a video camera with him, and he was strongly suspected of being a Saudi spy; he was deeply involved with the local Muslim community. In January 2000, he met Saudi consulate worker Fahad al-Thumairy to talk about greeting "visitors", who turned out to be Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar, two future 9/11 hijackers. al-Bayoumi claimed that he met them coincidentally at a Middle Eastern restaurant on Venice Boulevard in Los Angeles, and he befriended them; not only did he befriend them, but he decided to fund them. He bought them a place to stay in his apartment complex in San Diego, co-signed the lease, threw a party for them with several other Muslims, got them fake IDs, and paid for them to take English classes and flight schools. On 21 September 2001, ten days after the 9/11 attacks, he was briefly arrested in the United Kingdom, but he was released, and he returned to Saudi Arabia.