A California woman who unknowingly provided rental housing to a pair of Saudi 9/11 hijackers is speaking out about the way the pair ingrained themselves, by being “very, very friendly,” into the unsuspecting community of neighbors.
“I would have cookies and tea with them,” admitted Holly Ratchford, who managed the San Diego-area Parkwood Apartments where the hijackers lived, in her first public comments on her brush with terror.
“It wasn’t like they were just someone that came into the office and rented from us,” she told the BBC.
Ratchford rented units in the complex where she also lived to Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar, who were part of the five-man terror team that hijacked American Airlines Flight 77 and horrifically crashed it into the Pentagon, killing 184.
She was introduced to the pair by a Saudi national, Omar al-Bayoumi, who moved into the complex in 1999 — and whose government connections are central to a lawsuit by 9/11 victims’ families who blame the Saudi government for being complicit in the terror attacks, which will be marked by their 25th anniversary next month.
Years later, she still recalls how the terrorists blended in. “There was absolutely nothing unusual about them. They were nice, they were polite,” she said.
al-Bayoumi also appeared to snow her, claiming to be a student while covering up his government ties, which some investigators believe lined up with involvement in Saudi intelligence.
“I bought into everything that he told me,” Ratchford said. “I really thought that’s how he was.”
al-Bayoumi had a townhouse by the pool in the complex, and would regularly attend pool parties Ratchford hosted, the outlet reported.
“He was always so bubbly and smiling,” she said, calling him “very, very friendly.”
According to her account, al-Bayoumi vouched for his two terrorist buddies when they at first tried to rent a one-bedroom apartment from Ratchford by paying in cash, saying he knew them from his mosque.
“It was a general consensus of people in the San Diego Muslim community that Bayoumi was an operative of the Saudi intelligence service,” Richard Lambert, who led the city’s FBI office investigation after 9/11, told the BBC.
The Saudi national also had a sketch book with a drawing of a plane and an equation in it. He cosigned on the two mens’ rental agreement, and helped them set up a bank account.
al-Bayoumi told investigators he met the pair at a Middle Eastern restaurant in LA. According to the FBI, he was being paid by a contractor for the Saudi Civil Aviation Authority.
Some of Ratchford’s comments appear to clash with comments al-Bayoumi made to British authorities following the 9/11 attacks where he distanced himself from the two terrorists.
Ratchford says al-Bayoumi and the hijackers were “definitely friendly.”
al-Bayoumi was released and was not charged with a crime. He moved to Saudi Arabia in 2002.
According to an FBI report released in 2021, al-Bayoumi said he met Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar “by chance.” One source quoted in the report said Bayoumi held “very high status” inside the Saudi consulate in LA.
It wasn’t until 2024 that a video clip of Bayoumi that showed him filming the US Capitol and referencing a “plan” was unsealed and released in connection with the lawsuit
Attorneys for the 9/11 families of the 2,977 victims of the terror attacks continue to fight in court for compensation — and are relying in part on Bayoumi’s role to claim the Saudi government should be held liable for the attacks.
Riyadh has categorically denied that it was involved in preparations for the heinous attacks, and is fighting the families’ claims in court.
A federal judge in 2025 ruled that Sept. 11 families could continue the trial, citing circumstantial evidence that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia assisted the hijackers, citing the “inference” that the government had employed al-Bayoumi.
