Agrees To New Interview With US Officials

Just hours after his name was mentioned in a Fox News interview with Attorney General John Ashcroft Sunday, a Saudi man suspected of helping plot the September 11th attacks has reportedly agreed to meet with US investigators.

Omar al-Bayoumi has already been extensively questioned by authorities from a number of countries after it was discovered that he gave shelter to two of the 9/11 hijackers in the months before the attacks.

"I was on my way to Los Angeles with a friend to renew my passport...on our way back we stopped at a restaurant and heard two men talking. I thought they were from a Gulf country and they told me they were from Saudi Arabia," Bayoumi said. "They lived near my house (in the United States) for two or three weeks, then later they moved to another place," he said.

But Ashcroft, speaking on Fox News Sunday, said new information has come to light, which has shed new light on the relationship between al-Bayoumi and the two hijackers.

The congressional report, some parts of which Washington is keeping classified on grounds it could compromise intelligence, says Bayoumi gave two of the hijackers "considerable assistance" when they moved to San Diego. The report says Bayoumi co-signed the hijackers' lease, paid their first month's rent and security deposit.

Here's the kicker: Bayoumi works for the Saudi Civil Aviation Authority.

Here's the question: Where did all his money come from? Although Bayoumi was a student he had "access to seemingly unlimited funding from Saudi Arabia," said the 9/11 report. "For example, an FBI source identified al-Bayoumi as the person who delivered $400,000 from Saudi Arabia for a Kurdish mosque in San Diego."

One of the FBI's best sources in San Diego thought Bayoumi must be an intelligence officer for Saudi Arabia or another foreign power, the report said. It said while those findings could suggest evidence of support for the hijackers, it was also possible further investigation could reveal "legitimate, and innocent, explanations for these associations."

Bayoumi said after the attacks he was questioned in Britain for seven days and that U.S. officials were present. He said officials searched his computers and personal files and took samples of his saliva for DNA testing, but released him when no evidence was found linking him to the hijacking plot. "They told me I was innocent of any link whatsoever," Bayoumi told Al Arabiya television from the Saudi city of Jeddah.

Senator Trent Lott, a Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, told CNN he knew of no direct evidence that Saudi agents had worked with the hijackers.

FMI: www.un.org/Docs/sc/committees