US embassy cable - 04ABUDHABI3832

UNCLAS ABU DHABI 003832 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR NEA/ARPI 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PTER, KCRM, TC 
SUBJECT: UAE 9/11 hijacker linked to 1996 rape and murder 
case 
 
 
1. An appeal of an old murder case reported October 22 in 
the local press revealed a violent criminal episode in the 
life of Fayez Al Qadi Banihammad, one of two UAE nationals 
among the hijackers aboard United Airlines Flight 175 in 
the 9/11 attacks.  According to the October 22 Gulf News 
article, Fayez Banihammad was one of six UAE nationals 
convicted of the 1996 rape of a UAE juvenile.  The then- 
juvenile, described only as E.M., was himself recently 
convicted and sentenced to death by the Fujairah Sharia 
Court after he was found guilty of tracking down and 
murdering one of his six rapists, a former "best friend." 
 
2. The story has hit the papers now because the rape 
victim/murderer has filed an appeal with the UAE Supreme 
Court to reduce the Fujairah Sharia Court's death sentence 
to imprisonment.  The first hearing is in November.  (Note: 
The last death sentence carried out in the UAE was in June 
1998 when Atallah Khair Mohammed, a Pakistani, was executed 
by firing squad in Dubai for a 1993 murder.  End note.) 
 
3. The six UAE nationals accused of sexual assault were 
each sentenced to five years in prison.  The victim's 
former "best friend," missing at the time of the trial, was 
sentenced in absentia.  The men appealed and the Appeals 
Court reduced the sentence on the rapists to nine months 
and ordered a lashing, according to Gulf News. 
 
4. The affair began to take its bizarre twist a year after 
the rape when the body of the victim's missing "best 
friend" was discovered near a village.  Authorities said 
the man had been dead about a year.  Initially, no one was 
charged.  In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, in which 
hijacker Fayez Bannihammad died, two of his relatives were 
arrested in Khor Fakkan for "staging a protest" and jailed 
in Abu Dhabi.  Undercover police who questioned the two 
relatives in prison learned about the rape and the 
subsequent murder of one of those convicted of the rape: 
the suspects being interrogated in Abu Dhabi told police 
that the rape victim had borrowed a pistol from one of 
them, and had gone with 9/11 hijacker Fayez Banihammad to 
kill the former "best friend." 
 
ALBRIGHT