Best of 2025: INVESTIGATION: The 9/11 suspect - part 2
The Story
The Times
3.9 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 31 December 2025
⏱️ 34 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On September 21, 2001, Omar al-Bayoumi was arrested in Birmingham on suspicion of the preparation, instigation or commission of acts of terrorism. Police would have seven days before they would need to charge, extradite, or release him. Over the next week of questioning, there would be extraordinary revelations -- but also leads not followed, and crucial information not shared. So what went wrong?
This is part two of a three-part special investigative series, first published in September.
This podcast was brought to you thanks to the support of readers of The Times and The Sunday Times. Subscribe today: http://thetimes.com/thestory
Guest: Amardeep Bassey, journalist, The Sunday Times.
Host: Taryn Siegel.
Producer: Taryn Siegel.
Read more: Revealed after 24 years, how UK was forced to free 9/11 ‘plotter’
Clips: Metropolitan Police Services.
Photo: Tony Bell.
Get in touch: thestory@thetimes.com
This podcast was brought to you thanks to subscribers of The Times and The Sunday Times. To enjoy unlimited digital access to all our journalism subscribe here.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hello, this is Luke from the story. You probably can't move from all the festive overindulging you've been enjoying. |
| 0:06.7 | I know the story team certainly have. So I am minding the podcast fort with some of our 2025 favourites to keep you going over the Christmas period and distract you from returning to the fridge. |
| 0:18.5 | Enjoy. Enjoy. |
| 0:29.9 | It's February 1st, 2000. |
| 0:34.4 | About a year and a half before the deadliest terrorist attack on U.S. soil. |
| 0:39.0 | And two men have sat down at a table at the Mediterranean Cafe in Culver City, Los Angeles. It's a breezy, sunny day. Looming over the cafe nearby is a beautiful |
| 0:47.8 | white stone mosque. One of the men is young, about 22 years old. |
| 0:56.9 | The other is a bit older in his mid-40s. |
| 1:02.5 | At a pause in their conversation, the older man's face suddenly brightens. |
| 1:06.1 | He will later tell police that it's at this moment, |
| 1:12.7 | his ears suddenly caught a sound he didn't expect to hear thousands of miles away from his home in Saudi Arabia. |
| 1:19.8 | Two young men at the table next to theirs are speaking Gulf Arabic, his own dialect. |
| 1:23.5 | He leans over and introduces himself. |
| 1:29.3 | Police would later identify those two young men speaking Gulf Arabic as Khaled al-Madar and Nawafal-Hasmi, two of the 9-11 hijackers. They were the muscle men who'd |
| 1:37.6 | overpower crew and passengers aboard a Boeing 757, plunging it into the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. |
| 1:46.8 | The older man, sitting at the table next to them, who introduced himself, was Omar Albuyumi. |
| 1:58.2 | Today, 24 years on from 9-11, Alba-umi stands accused of being a Saudi agent who helped the hijackers carry out the worst terrorist attack in history. |
| 2:08.8 | He has always denied this. |
| 2:11.2 | And for the first time, we can tell you the full story of Alba Yumi's links to the hijers, and how he was let go by British police, acting |
| 2:20.2 | under the instruction of American agents. |
| 2:23.5 | The law at the time, in fact, had only recent been passed in the UK, the Anti-Terrorism Act |
| 2:27.4 | 2000, meant that you could only keep terror suspects for a maximum of seven days after arrest, |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Times, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of The Times and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.