WASHINGTON, 25 July 2003 — A Saudi citizen named in a US congressional report, who is said to have been in contact with two of the Saudi terrorists involved in the Sept. 11 bombings, was not a Saudi government agent, according to Prince Bandar ibn Sultan, the Saudi ambassador to the United States.
“Reports that Omar Al-Bayoumi is an agent of the Saudi government are baseless and not true. It is unfortunate that reports keep circulating in the media describing him as an agent of the Saudi government with attribution only to anonymous officials. This is blatantly false,” said Prince Bandar in a statement released yesterday.
US authorities say Omar Al-Bayoumi knew hijackers Khalid Al-Mihdhar and Nawaf Al-Hazmi when they lived in San Diego a year before the Sept. 11 attacks and helped pay their rent.
But Al-Bayoumi, who left the United States in April 2001, denied last year that he had helped the two hijackers and said he had been cleared by US and British investigators.
The report says that both Saudi Arabia and the US had investigated and dismissed the story after the Sept. 11 attacks. “Al-Bayoumi was detained in London and questioned by US and British law enforcement officials. I doubt that the FBI would have let him go had he been in any way implicated in the events of Sept. 11. He was also questioned upon his return to Saudi Arabia by Saudi law enforcement officials. The investigations in this matter have concluded that he was not involved in the Sept. 11 attacks,” Prince Bandar said. “The Saudi government has not received any new information implicating Al-Bayoumi,” Prince Bandar said, adding: “There had not been requests from any friendly government to further question him.”
“Questions about Al-Bayoumi have been asked and answered. Apparently, this is a case of someone simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time,” said the statement. The release also said that Saudi Arabia interrogated scores of individuals since the NYC and recent Riyadh bombings: “Since Sept. 11, Saudi Arabia has questioned thousands of individuals, and detained over 500, of whom 150 have been arrested since the May 12 attacks in Riyadh. Saudi Arabia has captured or killed the top three Al-Qaeda operatives in the Kingdom, broken up Al-Qaeda cells, intercepted attempts to smuggle weapons and explosives into the Kingdom by Al-Qaeda, unearthed caches of explosives and foiled numerous attacks against Saudi and other targets.”
Prince Bandar also said his government worked hard with other countries, including the US, to clamp down on terrorism. He said Saudi Arabia had extradited people from numerous countries and worked with and shared intelligence on Al-Qaeda with friendly governments.
“Saudi Arabia has tightened its financial system and worked with its charities to implement one of the toughest financial control mechanisms in the world in order to prevent evildoers from taking advantage of the generosity of Saudi citizens. These are the actions of a state that is pursuing terrorists and evildoers with vigilance and without mercy. They are not the actions of a state that in any way, shape or form condones terrorism, much less supports it,” added the statement.
Finally, Prince Bandar targeted those targeting the Kingdom: “It is unfortunate that since the tragic events of Sept. 11 some people have tried to malign our country, our people and our faith by leveling baseless charges, spreading rumors, innuendo and untruths. American officials, including the president, have repeatedly and publicly attested to Saudi Arabian commitment to the war on terrorism and to the positive role it has played in confronting evildoers.”
