F.B.I. agents have interviewed a Saudi citizen identified by Congressional investigators as a likely intelligence operative for Riyadh who befriended two of the 9/11 hijackers in California more than a year before the attacks. The interview today in Saudi Arabia was the first of two scheduled sessions between investigators and the Saudi, Omar al-Bayoumi, who was living as a student in San Diego in early 2000 when he met Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, 2 of the 15 Saudis who came to the United States to train for the hijackings. The officials said that in the interview Mr. Bayoumi denied any advance knowledge of the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
| "I know nossing! Nos-sing! Tell them, Hogan!" |
The interview with Mr. Bayoumi, whose presence in San Diego has long been known to American authorities, took place largely because he figured prominently in a Congressional report on the hijackings released on July 24 by a joint committee of the House and Senate intelligence committees. Mr. Bayoumi's dealings with the two hijackers are detailed in both the public parts of the report and in a still unreleased 28-page classified chapter. Saudi officials agreed to allow Mr. Bayoumi to be questioned by F.B.I. agents after Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, asked the Saudi foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, for access to Mr. Bayoumi during a White House meeting with President Bush on July 29. At the meeting Prince Saud asked Mr. Bush to release the classified portion of the Congressional report so it could be rebutted. Mr. Bush refused. |