Saudi Trans Student suicide lawyer had an embassy links

When a famous Saudi trans woman posted her suicide note on X, her friends and followers were devastated. The note, viewed by millions, said that a lawyer in the United States – where she was trying to seek asylum – persuaded her to return home to a family and country who would not accept her identity.

The BBC World Service has identified this man as Bader Alomerer, who worked at the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Washington, evidence. It is associated with contradictory returns from the United States of several other Saudi students – including two later accused of committing a murder during their time at the university.

Alomair did not respond to the allegations raised in our investigation.

Eden Knight was one of the most respected families of the Kingdom of the Middle East. After moving to Virginia in 2019 by Saudi Arabian's scholarship for training at George Mason University, Eden decided in early 2022 to the transition from presentation as a man to presentation as a woman and wore feminine clothes and take Female sex hormones.

Eden found a community of X and Discord, where he felt accepted and began to grow the following online. In one post, she shared a photo of her photo in Saudi Aras to her new female appearance and the publication became viral.

Being a transgender in Saudi Arabia is not tolerated by society or government – we spoke with several transsexual Saudis who now lives outside the kingdom, who told us about harassment, and in some cases violence survived.

Therefore, returning to Saudi Arabia could have been difficult for edema. We understand that her student visa expired during her viral tweet, so she decided to seek asylum in the US to stay there.

Eden said she had been sent by an old friend who came into contact with an American private investigator Michael Izmiko. He offered to help with her request for asylum and correct the relationship with her family – according to another friend Heidon, with whom Eden lived in Georgia at the time.

Other friends have shared messages with us from Eden who claim that G -n Pocalyko told her that she needed to move from Georgia to Washington to apply.

According to the final message she published on X, at the end of October 2022, the private investigator met with Eden from the train in the US capital. He was accompanied by a Saudi lawyer named Bader, she writes.

“I was genuinely optimistic and believed it could work,” Eden said in his last post. She said Bader lifted her in a nice apartment near Washington and took her.

But over time, it seems that she began to question his motives. Eden writes to friends, in messages shared with the BBC that Bader is “blur”. She told them that Bader tried to throw away all her women's clothing and told her to stop hormone therapy.

Eden also told friends that Bader advised her that she could not apply for asylum in the United States and that she should return to Saudi Arabia to do so. A US immigration expert said such tips would be incorrect.

In December 2022, Eden sent me friends to say, “I go (back to a Saudi lawyer and wish the best.” Her note of X suicide of X clarifies that the lawyer in question was someone called Bader.

It wasn't long for Eden to tell friends that a return is a mistake.

She sent them to say that her parents had taken her passport and the government instructed her to close her account in X. Eden told friends that there was evidence that her parents had hired people to return her to Saudi Arabia , although she has never shared this evidence.

“The lawyer who helped me with asylum was working with my parents behind my back,” she told one of them.

Over the next few months, Eden's friends say she lost all hope of escaping Saudi Arabia.

She worked in a junior position in a technology company and took her original male identity in public. Eden sent a message to a friend to say that she was trying to continue taking female hormones, but that her parents repeatedly confiscate them. Eden told friends that she had suffered a constant verbal abuse and sent them a video – which we saw – that she had secretly recorded a family member, who was shouting that she had been washed by the brain of Western ideas.

Eden took his own life on March 12, 2023

We wanted to find Bader – the lawyer who accused of distinguishing her and convinced her home to ask him more about the events that flow to her death.

We looked for lawyers by this name in the DC area and one appeared: Bader Alomerer. There was limited information about him online, but an outdated directory for professionals working in Riyadh gave his full name in Arabic – which in turn led us to an inactive Facebook account showing his photo at the Harvard Faculty of Harvard.

In texts sent to Eden to friends, she mentioned that her lawyer had been trained in Harvard.

The source then shared a decisive photo – taken by edema from the apartment that installed it, that aloAir.

A man there told us that he knew Eden and saw her with a d -alomir.

He said that Eden has women's clothing, jewelry and makeup, but he will have to hide it when Mr. Alomar comes. He made her cut her hair and told her not to shave, the witness said.

We have repeatedly tried to contact G -n AloMair, but he did not answer. When we visited the address listed in his DC Bar registration, we saw a man who responds to pictures of him, enters the SUV and will expel.

We followed, noting the unusual car number sign – its code shows that the car was issued by the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Washington and that the owner of the vehicle is an employee of the Embassy.

The role of G -N Alomair in the embassy was to support the Saudi students in the United States, a lawyer who had previously worked with him.

We have found news articles that emphasize cases of d -alomair, helping those who have left homeless from a hurricane in Florida, for example. But we also found that his help had expanded to more powerful situations.

On October 13, 2018, two Saudi students were questioned by US police over the death of an ambitious rapper in North Carolina – stabbed, according to a dispute with the couple.

About two months later, Abdullah Hariri and Sultan Alsuchami were charged with murder, but until then left the United States.

Just four days after the piercing, Harri was flying back to Saudi Arabia, suggests an email shared with us. It includes details of the home flights that the source told us that G -n AloMair organizes both Hariri and G -n Alsuhaymi.

No student has never commented on the case.

Alomair was sent for flights a month later, showing another email that our source says should receive a recovery from the Saudi Arabian Embassy.

Another source says he has worked with him to represent dozens of other Saudi students in the United States against accusations ranging from speed to driving a drink.

“Bader would come to meetings with Arabic form, headed by the Saudi Embassy, ​​so that students could sign (who) promised to pay the Saudi government's legal fees after they returned home.”

The source told us that the students would appear at their first hearing, but disappeared before the next hearing, although we do not know if he has played any role in this.

In 2019, the FBI warned that Saudi officials were likely to make the escape of Saudi citizens from US judicial proceedings.

“The FBI estimates that Saudi Arabia employees almost certainly help US -based citizens of Saudi to avoid legal problems by undermining the US trial. This assessment is made with great confidence.”

People outside the UK can watch the documentary on YouTube

Sources told us that G -n Alomair continues to live and work in the United States. He owns numerous commercial properties around Washington and in August 2024 seems to have set up a new law firm in Virginia, where he is a baptismal partner.

Michael Izmiko, Bader Alomir and the Saudi Embassy in Washington did not answer our questions.

We contacted Eden's family to ask if they wanted to participate in this story, but they did not answer.

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