NEW YORK, Aug 2: The classified part of a contentious Congressional report on the 9/11 attacks says that two Saudi citizens who had at least indirect links with two hijackers were probably Saudi intelligence agents and may have reported to Saudi government officials.
Quoting people who have seen the report, The New York Times said on Saturday that these findings help to explain why the classified part of the report has become so politically charged, causing strains between the United States and Saudi Arabia.
Senior Saudi officials have denied any links between their government and the attacks and have asked that the section be declassified, but President Bush has refused.
The Times said that those familiar with the report, and who spoke on condition of not being named, said that the two Saudi citizens, Omar al-Bayoumi and Osama Bassnan, operated in a complex web of financial relationships with officials of the Saudi government. The sections that focus on them draw connections between the two men, two hijackers, and Saudi officials.
The report urged further investigation of the two men and their contacts with the hijackers, because of unresolved questions about their relationship and whether they had any involvement in the 9/11 plot.
The edited 28-page section of the report, produced by a joint panel of the House and Senate intelligence committees, also says that a Muslim cleric in San Diego was a central figure in a support network that aided the same two hijackers. Most connections drawn in the report between the men, Saudi intelligence and the attacks are circumstantial, several people who have read the report told the paper.
The unclassified parts of the report also suggest a connection between Mr al-Bayoumi and Saudi intelligence. The report says that “one of the FBI’s best sources in San Diego informed the FBI that he thought that al-Bayoumi must be an intelligence officer.” The report also says that “despite the fact that he was a student, al-Bayoumi had access to seemingly unlimited funding from Saudi Arabia.”
The paper said that one unresolved issue in the classified part of the report concerned Mr Bassnan’s visit to Houston after the attacks. While Saudi Crown Prince Abdul met with President Bush, Mr Bassnan met with a Saudi in his entourage, according to the report. It is not known what they discussed.
In San Diego, Mr. al-Bayoumi was employed by a contractor to the Saudi civil aviation authority, and received payments authorized by a Saudi official. But Congressional officials believe he was a “ghost employee” of the contractor who did no actual work. The payments authorized by the Saudi official increased significantly after Mr al-Bayoumi came in contact with the two hijackers in early 2000, the classified part of the report states.