JEDDAH, 26 November 2002 — Osama Basannan, a Saudi businessman recently released by the US authorities after being detained for 85 days in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks, has told Arab News that he never knew Omar Al-Bayoumi, who allegedly paid for the accommodation of Khalid Al-Mihdhar and Nawaf Al-Hazmi, two of the Sept. 11 hijackers.

“I never knew him personally. But I saw him at the mosque praying,” Basannan told Arab News in an exclusive interview.

The US authorities arrested Basannan and his Palestinian wife Majeda Duwaikat on Aug. 22 for allegedly having links to Omar Bayoumi.

However, Basannan acknowledged that his wife had received financial assistance from the office of Princess Haifa Al-Faisal, wife of Saudi Ambassador to Washington, Prince Bandar ibn Sultan.

“When I wrote a letter to Prince Bandar requesting assistance to meet expenses of my wife’s medical treatment, the prince approved the application. Princess Haifa’s office later called my wife by telephone and agreed to provide us assistance in the form of a monthly salary,” he explained. Asked whether his wife had endorsed these checks for use by others like Bayoumi, Basannan said: “She did not give them to anybody, be it Bayoumi or any other person. Our debts were more than what we received from Princess Haifa. You can imagine how much money an eight-member family requires to live in the US.”

Basannan said he met with Bayoumi at the Claremont mosque in San Diego, as did many other Muslims.

“If Americans blame every Muslim for the acts and violations of those who had prayed with him, nobody will be left out of the procedure,” he said.

A San Diego court, which held three sittings with Basannan and two with his wife, cleared the two of all allegations against them and allowed them to leave the US. The court ruled that there was no substantive evidence against either Basannan or his wife.

“They arrested me while I was on my way back to my house. More than 25 cops arrested me in a dramatic manner.”

Basnnnan’s wife was also arrested at their house and was taken to prison. She was separated from their six children, who were later sent to stay with two Arab families and an American family.

Basannan said the police did not beat him during questioning.

“But they put cuffs on my hands. There was a great deal of pain, which I still feel.”

He said that the arrest and interrogation had caused him a great deal of mental stress.

“I was also worried about the education of my children.”

Basannan confirmed that US authorities allowed him to use the phone only infrequently at the beginning of his detention and he suffered great financial losses as a result of this restriction. He went to the United States so his wife could get medical treatment before the Sept. 11 attacks.

“We were looking for a suitable doctor to carry out a complicated operation related to her thyroid gland,” he said. While in the US, he sold cars and his wife sat for an American fellowship certificate exam in nursing, which she failed and could not repeat because her visa subsequently expired.

He said that he had made efforts to renew the visa with the help of an American lawyer. Before the Sept. 11 attacks, an American official at the Immigration and Naturalization Service had told the lawyer that the Saudis did not need to renew their papers.

“I thought my wife’s medical treatment would not take so long. On the day they arrested me, I was actually coming from the Saudi Consulate, where I had gone to discuss the question of obtaining our resident permit.

Basannan said he also received financial assistance from his father in the Kingdom. The embassy helped him to meet the expenses of his wife and six children, aged from three to 11.

Asked what the FBI agents had questioned his wife about, Basannan said they asked her the reason they had both delayed their return to the Kingdom and requested information about who had lived in their residential complex.

He said his wife was jailed for 78 days in the same prison as him on the Mexican border.