BBC Investigation Finds FBI Sat on Video and Diagram Tying Alleged Saudi Operative to 9/11 for 25 Years

A BBC Panorama and Radio 4 investigation says the FBI possessed video and physical evidence connecting an alleged Saudi intelligence operative to two of the 9/11 hijackers within days of the attacks, and sat on it for a quarter-century.

The man is Omar al-Bayoumi, who claimed to be a student while living in the United States. British police arrested him days after the September 11, 2001 attacks, and among his possessions officers found videos and a diagram of a plane with a flight-descent equation written alongside it, according to the BBC.

One video shows Bayoumi embracing Anwar al-Awlaki, who later led al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the BBC reported. Another shows the two men paintballing near San Diego with an official from Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Islamic Affairs. Fox 13 News reported that a separate recording captures Bayoumi discussing the U.S. Capitol's entrances and exits, saying, "I will report in detail what is there... I will provide you with the results soon" — footage the families' lawyers argue shows him casing the intended target of United Airlines Flight 93.

None of this is new evidence discovered in 2026. It has existed in FBI files and British custody for 25 years. What changed is that a $1 trillion lawsuit filed by 9/11 families against Saudi Arabia forced years of civil discovery, and a 2018 court ruling let the case proceed. Thousands of documents, videos, and photographs have since been released to the court, and additional material was declassified under an executive order President Joe Biden signed in September 2021 directing the attorney general to review 9/11-related records for release.

Where the FBI's handling gets ugly

Multiple FBI agents received copies of the plane diagram found in Bayoumi's possessions, according to the BBC's reporting, but it was never shared with British interrogators holding Bayoumi in custody, even though it had been couriered to that same police station. The diagram was also withheld from some FBI agents working the Bayoumi case and from the 9/11 Commission, the independent body Congress created to investigate the attacks.

FBI agents in San Diego, where Bayoumi had lived, repeatedly requested copies of evidence and never received most of it, the BBC found. San Diego and Los Angeles field offices were both blocked from interviewing Bayoumi's Saudi government contacts.

A Justice Department official told the BBC he was never shown a formal proposal to prosecute Bayoumi based on the evidence, adding, "we've convicted people for less." Bayoumi was never charged. He and the Saudi government did not respond to the BBC's requests for comment; both have consistently denied any involvement in or advance knowledge of the attacks. The FBI declined to comment on the investigation's findings.

The distinction that matters

STL.News, in a report published September 6, 2026, made a point worth repeating: none of this amounts to a U.S. government finding that Saudi Arabia planned or ordered 9/11. No such finding exists. What exists is a civil lawsuit's discovery record, decades-old FBI files, and years of assembled circumstantial material that plaintiffs' lawyers argue points toward complicity by individuals connected to Saudi institutions.

That is a fair distinction to hold onto. A diagram in a suspect's possession and a video of him mingling with a future al-Qaeda leader are damning optics, but they are not a conviction, and Bayoumi was never charged with anything related to the attacks. The strongest defense of the FBI's conduct, which no source in this record makes explicitly but which the bureau's silence implies, is that agencies routinely withhold raw investigative material from foreign police and even from independent commissions for source-protection or classification reasons, not necessarily out of an intent to bury a Saudi connection. That explanation has never been offered on the record by the FBI, and the bureau again declined to comment when the BBC asked.

ABC News reported September 3, 2026, that 9/11 families are now asking President Donald Trump to declassify additional records, including phone records they believe could clarify contacts between Bayoumi and two of the eventual hijackers. The White House told ABC it is working to identify records responsive to that request. No timeline for a decision has been made public.

Meanwhile the military tribunal at Guantánamo Bay for accused 9/11 ringleader Khalid Sheikh Mohammed remains stalled over disputes about CIA interrogation methods, according to Fox 13 News, after the Pentagon canceled plea deals previously struck with defendants. That leaves the civil lawsuit against Saudi Arabia as the primary legal avenue still generating new evidence, nearly 25 years after the attacks it concerns.