UNSEEN video seized by British cops shows an alleged Saudi spy and early 9/11 suspect scoping out Washington DC before the deadly Twin Towers attack.
Footage shows him casing government buildings in the capital, saying in Arabic: “They say that our kids are demons. However, these are the demons of the White House.”
Filmed two years before 9/11, the hour-long recording shows him saying “Their cars. You said that in the plan”, as he points at limousines in front of the Capitol.
At one point, addressing his “brothers”, he says “I will report to you in detail what is there” as the camera pans towards the Washington monument.
It pans across iconic landmarks including the White House, Capitol building, Potomac river and the Smithsonian Institute as he talks to the viewer.
The man behind the camera is Saudi Arabian Omar al-Bayoumi, at the time a mature student living in Birmingham who would later insist to British cops that it was just a tourist video.
A short clip of his video of DC has resurfaced as part of an ongoing civil court case in New York, shared by Sky.
Survivors and families of the 9/11 tragedy are trying to sue the Saudi government for being complicit in the attacks.
Scotland Yard cops raided Mr al-Bayoumi’s home and arrested him ten days after 9/11, taking the footage into evidence.
He was probed by counter-terror detectives for a week but later released without charge.
The FBI identified him as a Saudi intelligence agent – which the Saudi government and he both deny along with any involvement in 9/11.
Mr al-Bayoumi said around a year later that he had unknowingly befriended two of the men who would later fly one of the hijacked planes into the Pentagon, killing 189 people.
A declassified FBI report published in 2021 said hijackers Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Midhar entered the US posing as students in 2000.
The memo claimed they received logistical support from Mr al-Bayoumi, who reportedly helped them with “translation, travel, lodging and financing”.
Sources also told the FBI that he was a frequent visitor to the Saudi Consulate in Los Angeles despite his official status as a student.
The documents suggested he corresponded with a logistics facilitator for Osama bin Laden – the Saudi Arabian terror mastermind behind 9/11.
The plaintiff’s legal team asked the British Metropolitan police three years ago to scour its archive and send over any relevant information from its probe into Mr al-Bayoumi.
It is not clear whether the tape was originally sent to American authorities in 2001.
Some eight detectives spent months going through more than 100 boxes of archived files as they came across the video.
Gavin Simpson, the lawyer representing the plaintiffs, told the judge: “A trove of evidence seized by the Metropolitan Police…. enables your honour, the public and the 9/11 families to perceive for themselves the mechanism by which Saudi Arabia provided support to the 9/11 hijackers.
“Bayoumi’s videotape bore all the characteristics, the hallmarks of al Qaeda casing a terrorist target.”
One of the plaintiffs, 9/11 survivor Sharon Premoli, spoke during the recent court hearings when the video was played.
She said: “Al-Bayoumi’s language was very incriminating.
“Two words he used in particular, one being the ‘demons’ inside the Capitol and number two ‘the plan’ he referred to. It’s not a tourist video, he was casing the buildings and the area.
“It’s wonderful that the Met Police was able to confiscate this information, but it’s unfortunate we had to wait so long for it.
“We don’t know how long anyone in the US government had the material.
“We know the FBI and the CIA were not helping each other and a lot was missed because of that.
“It’s also possible the Bush administration had it and decided not to do anything with it to protect the Saudis.”
Ms Premoli was on the 80th floor of one of the Twin Towers when the planes hit and managed to escape the attack that killed almost 3,000 people.
A notebook connected to the UK probe into Mr al-Bayoumi was also shown in court, with a drawing showing the distance between a plane, the ground and the horizon.
His lawyer claims it was part of his teenage son’s homework.
A 9/11 Commission, which investigated the attacks and what events led up to them, concluded that Mr al-Bayoumi wasn’t involved in the terror plot.
They were given neither the notebook nor the tape by UK authorities, Sky reports.
The Saudi government has previously denied any involvement in the planning or support of the 9/11 attacks.
BY Ellie Doughty, Foreign News Reporter
ON September 11, 2024, it will have been 23 years since the horrific terror attack on the World Trade Centre – or ‘Twin Towers’ – in New York City.
In a series of coordinated suicide attacks, four commercial passenger planes were hijacked by 19 extremists.
The first two planes were crashed into the Twin Towers and the remaining two planes were aimed at Washington DC.
The third struck the Pentagon in Virginia and the fourth crashed into rural Pennsylvania as passengers overwhelmed the terrorists onboard.
The September 11 attacks killed 2,977 people, making it the deadliest terrorist attack in history.
As many as 25,000 people were injured.
In response, the United States waged the multi-decade global War on Terror.
Here is a timeline of the horror attacks:
