Landlady to 9/11 hijackers reveals links to alleged Saudi spy for the first time

Holly Ratchford, who managed a residential complex in San Diego, California, where two 9/11 hijackers resided, has publicly spoken for the first time about her interactions with Saudi national Omar al-Bayoumi, an alleged Saudi spy accused of assisting the men before the attacks. Ratchford revealed her struggle to reconcile the friendly man she knew with the allegations against him. She managed Parkwood Apartments and recounted that al-Bayoumi, a regular at her complex's pool parties, brought Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar to her office in February 2000 seeking an apartment.

Despite the hijackers not meeting income requirements, al-Bayoumi co-signed their lease and helped them open a bank account. Ratchford described the hijackers as polite and without any unusual characteristics at the time. Al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar later participated in the 9/11 attacks, hijacking American Airlines Flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon. The FBI interviewed Ratchford shortly after the attacks and later identified "a network headed up by Omar al-Bayoumi."

Al-Bayoumi has long faced allegations of facilitating the hijackers' activities in San Diego, with an August 2025 ruling from a New York federal judge finding a "reasonable inference" that he and a Saudi diplomat coordinated with the Saudi government. Although Saudi Arabia and al-Bayoumi deny these allegations, and Saudi Arabia is appealing the ruling, declassified FBI documents from 2022 and 2021 indicate that al-Bayoumi was a Saudi intelligence agent who provided significant logistical and financial support to the hijackers.