A former property manager in San Diego has spoken publicly about her interactions with Omar al-Bayoumi, the Saudi national accused of helping two of the 9/11 hijackers before the attacks.
The US Department of Justice decided not to seek his extradition. He later returned to Saudi Arabia. Bayoumi was arrested in Birmingham, UK, shortly after 9/11 but was released after seven days. In an August 2025 ruling, US District Judge George B Daniels said he denied that Bayoumi was simply an innocent person who happened to help the hijackers. In 1999, he filmed the US Capitol in Washington, DC, from several angles. Lawyers representing the 9/11 families have argued that the video could show that he was surveilling a potential target. Saudi Arabia has repeatedly denied that Bayoumi was a Saudi agent or that he knew about the 9/11 attack beforehand. In its August 2025 judgment, however, the New York court said the video itself only established that Bayoumi had visited Washington and filmed the city.
During the recording, he referred to a “plan”. “All the Court can conclude from the video is that Bayoumi visited Washington DC and that he filmed the city,” the judge ruled. The judge said there was a reasonable inference that the assistance Bayoumi provided to the hijackers in connection with their apartment was not merely an act of kindness and may have been carried out on instructions from the Saudi government. They have also said the footage was simply a tourist video.
Holly Ratchford managed Parkwood Apartments in San Diego in the late 1990s. Ratchford remembers him as friendly and sociable. Bayoumi moved into the complex with his family in September 1999 and soon became a familiar face there.
“He was always so bubbly and smiling and just very, very friendly,” she told the BBC .
The FBI subsequently interviewed Ratchford. She handed over Bayoumi’s lease documents, which became part of the investigation into his relationship with the hijackers.
The case is now with the US Court of Appeals, which will hear oral arguments in October.
