1995: Passport of 9/11 Hijacker’s Namesake Stolen in Denver

A passport belonging to a man with the same first and last name as one of the 9/11 hijackers, Abdulaziz Alomari, is stolen and this will cause some confusion in the weeks following 9/11. Alomari, who studies at the University of Colorado from 1993 to 2000, informs the police of the theft, which occurs when a thief breaks into his apartment. [Los Angeles Times, 9/21/2001; Daily Telegraph, 9/23/2001] Although the validity of the stolen passport is not specified, a visa application submitted by another of the Saudi hijackers in 1997 will indicate that his passport was good for five lunar years, so the stolen passport may have been valid for the same period. [US Department of State, 11/2/1997] When the FBI releases lists of the 9/11 hijackers on September 14 and 27, 2001, it will give two birthdates for the hijacker Abdulaziz Alomari. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/14/2001; Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/27/2001] One of them, May 28, 1879, will be used by the hijacker, for example on his US visa application. [US Department of State, 6/18/2001] The other, December 24, 1972, belongs to the former Denver student, who will be a telecommunications engineer in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on 9/11 and will comment: “I couldn’t believe it when the FBI put me on their list. They gave my name and my date of birth, but I am not a suicide bomber. I am here. I am alive. I have no idea how to fly a plane. I had nothing to do with this.” [Daily Telegraph, 9/23/2001] It will be unclear how and why the birth date of Alomari the telecommunications engineer appears on the list of hijackers. However, after finding Alomari’s name on a passenger manifest, the FBI will check various databases to find more information about him. [US District Court for Portland, Maine, 9/12/2001] Alomari the telecommunications engineer is stopped three times by police in Denver for minor offences before 9/11 and gives them the 1972 birth date, so the FBI may obtain it by searching Denver police records. [New Yorker, 5/27/2002] Radical Sunni Muslims connected to Osama bin Laden had a presence in Denver from the mid-1990s (see 1994 and March 2000).