Landlady recalls Saudi facilitator who brought 9/11 hijackers to her

Holly Ratchford, who managed a residential complex in California's San Diego where two of the 9/11 hijackers lived, has spoken publicly for the first time about her encounters with Saudi national Omar al-Bayoumi, who is accused of helping the two men before the attacks. Speaking to the BBC, Ratchford said she still struggles to reconcile the friendly man she knew with the allegations surrounding him. “It's almost impossible for me to wrap my head around who he said he was, and who he really is. I still struggle with that,” she said. Bayoumi moved with his family into Parkwood Apartments in September 1999 and soon became a regular at Ratchford's pool parties. She described him as “always so bubbly and smiling” and “very, very friendly”. In February 2000, Bayoumi brought two men, Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar, to Ratchford's office seeking an apartment. The pair did not meet the complex's income requirements, but Bayoumi co-signed their lease and helped them open a bank account. Hazmi and Mihdhar later became two of the 19 al-Qaeda members who hijacked four US passenger planes on September 11, 2001. The two were on American Airlines Flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon. Ratchford said she had no reason at the time to suspect the men. “There was absolutely nothing unusual about them. They were nice, they were polite,” she told the BBC. She later learned of their identities in the aftermath of the attacks, when a woman who claimed to be seeking a rental reference asked her whether she knew they were terrorists who had flown a plane into the Pentagon. “And I went, ‘What?’” Ratchford recalled. The FBI interviewed her on September 14, 2001, and obtained Bayoumi's guarantor form. Former FBI investigator Richard Lambert told the BBC that investigators later identified “a network headed up by Omar al-Bayoumi”. Bayoumi has long faced allegations that he facilitated the hijackers' activities in San Diego. In an August 2025 ruling, a New York federal judge found that evidence created a “reasonable inference” that Bayoumi and a Saudi diplomat had been coordinating with the Saudi government while assisting the hijackers. Saudi Arabia and Bayoumi have denied the allegations and Saudi Arabia is appealing the ruling. Ratchford, who has provided a sealed declaration to the New York court, said she has been haunted by her connection to the three men for the past 25 years.