Exclusive | All the clues Ilhan Omar had sham marriage to brother — from marriage certificate to living with ‘dirty dandy’

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) has denied allegations this week she fraudulently married second husband and alleged brother Ahmed Elmi — but when asked if they were related, cautiously replied “not to my knowledge.” 

The Minnesota congresswoman, who arrived in the US as a refugee from Somalia in 1995, has vehemently denied allegations she married Elmi for immigration purposes. 

But significant evidence has emerged which continues to fuel speculation that is not the case:

Clue 1: The marriage certificate 

Omar, 45, legally married Elmi, 41, who she described as a British citizen, in the US in 2009 and they divorced in 2017. 

Omar’s family background is split across continents and complicated by Somalian paperwork being lost or destroyed.

Her mother is said to have died when she was young and her family is said to be split, with one branch in the UK and one in the US.

Elmi’s parentage is not known, but he lived in London with Leila Nur Said, a Somali woman who is thought to be Omar’s sister, who possibly raised him.

A UK marriage certificate for Leila from 1997 obtained by The Post lists her father as Nur Said Elmi, a military officer from Somalia.

Omar’s late father, Nur Omar Mohamed also went by the name Nur Said Elmi and was a prominent military commander in the Somali dictatorship, which millions fled from. 

Multiple sources have told The Post they believe the person listed on the British legal document is Nur, Omar’s father. 

Omar’s father also went by Nur Said on Facebook and his profile is linked to Leila’s, who proudly left “hearts” on his pictures. 

Following his death aged 67 from COVID complications in June 2020, well-wishers took to social media to pay tribute to “Nur Said Elmi” and left messages of condolences for both Omar and Leila. 

A motion filed Wednesday by the US District Attorney for the District of Columbia seeking to prevent the federal search warrant of Omar’s home from being unsealed, referred to the congresswoman as “Ilhan Nur Said Elmi, a/k/a Ilhan Abdullahi Omar.”

Leila and Omar did not respond for comment when reached out to by email. 

Clue 2: The living arrangements

While legally married to Elmi, Omar had her third child with previous husband, Ahmed Abdisalan Hirsi. 

Omar first applied for a marriage license with Hirsi in 2002, though she later said, “we never finalized the application and thus were never legally married.” 

According to Omar, the pair separated in 2008, then reconciled around four years later, circa 2012, and married in 2018. The couple have three children together, born in 2003, 2005 and 2012. 

However, from 2009 to 2017, Omar was legally married to Elmi. On their marriage application, both listed their marital address as a property in Columbia Heights, a suburb in Minneapolis. Hirsi also used that address for a business license.

Omar claims that she and Elmi split in 2011, but that it took a few years to finish the paperwork. It meant Omar had her third child with Hirsi while legally married to Elmi. 

On top of that, The Post has previously reported joint tax filings between Omar and Hirsi in 2014 and 2015, while she was legally married to Elmi. Those filings were later corrected. 

Omar’s divorce with Elmi was finalized in 2017, though he reportedly left the country to return to the UK well before it was completed.

Omar married Hirsi in January 2018. The following year, Elmi withdrew a marriage-based green-card application he had filed. It was reported the withdrawal came after the US Citizenship and Immigration Services requested more evidence about the marriage.

Clue 3: Community leader’s claim 

A Minneapolis-based Somali blogger added fuel to the fire when he told the Daily Mail in 2020 he knew Omar when the two were growing up in Minnesota — and she had introduced Elmi as her brother from London to Somali community members in the ‘00s.

Omar allegedly would tell people at the time her sibling was looking for “papers,” referencing immigration documents such as a green card.

“No one knew there had been a wedding [to Elmi] until the media turned up the marriage certificate years later,” he said at the time.

The Somali blogger claimed Elmi was ordered to come to the US from the UK by his father, who discovered he had been living a decadent and immoral life in London.

“People began noticing that Ilhan and [Hirsi] were often with a very effeminate young guy. He was very feminine in the way he dressed. He would wear light lipstick and pink clothes and very, very short shorts in the summer. People started whispering about him,” he claimed to the Daily Mail.

The ousting to America was meant as a sort of “rehab”. But after his marriage to Omar, Elmi left the US and returned to the UK — where he continued living a “flamboyant” life.

The Brit described himself as a “dirty dandy” on his social media profiles and regularly posted pictures of himself wearing garish outfits.

He was also spotted enjoying drinks alongside handsome men at upscale London cafes.

Elmi later pursued a doctorate degree at Bristol University from 2023 and served as a research assistant at the university’s School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies. 

Areas of interest included “critically queer,” “decolonization,” “gender research group,” and the “center for black humanities.”

As of late 2025, The Post reported how he made an extended visit to the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa. “So far, so fab…a month in JoBurg,” Elmi captioned an Instagram post dated Nov. 4.

Except Omar, Elmi has never been romantically linked to another woman. 

— Additional reporting by Philip Hamilton