BBC’s eye studies
XWhen the outstanding Saudi Trans -woman posted her note of suicide on X, her friends and followers were devastated. In the note, which was viewed by millions, a lawyer in the US – where she tried to claim shelter – convinced her to return home to a family and a country that will not accept her identity.
The data shows that the BBC World Service has identified this man as Bader Alamara, who worked at the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Washington. It is related to the contradictory profit from the United States of a number of other Saudi students – including two later accused of murder during their university.
Mr. Alamir did not respond to the allegations raised in our investigation.
Eden Knit was one of the most respected families of the Middle East. After moving to Virginia in 2019 on the Saudi Government Scholarship on Study at George Mason University, Eden decided to move from a man’s presentation as a woman in early 2022, dressing women’s clothing and taking women’s sex hormones.
Eden found a community on X and a disorder, where she felt accepted and started growing on the Internet. In one message, she shared a photo of her Saudi ID next to her new female appearance, and the post became viral.
XBeing a transgender in Saudi Arabia, a society or government is not allowed – we talked to several transgenders Saudi, who now live outside the kingdom who told us about persecution, and in some cases the violence they survived.
Return to Saudi Arabia can be difficult for Eden. We understand that her student visa ended at about the moment of her viral tweet, so she decided to seek asylum in the US to stay there constantly.
Eden said she had reported that an old friend had been transferred with US private investigator Michael Pocalik. He suggested helping her claim to the asylum and corrected relationships with his family – according to another friend Heiden, with whom Eden lived in Georgia at the time.
DeliveredOther friends shared with us Eden, who say that Mr. Pocalik told her she needed to move from Georgia to Washington to make her demand.
According to the final message she posted on X, at the end of October 2022, a private investigator met with Eden from a train in the US capital. He accompanied a Saudi lawyer named Bader, she wrote.
“I was honestly optimistic and thought it could work,” said Eden in her last post. She said Badder put her in a cute apartment near Washington and took a tour.
But over time, it seems, she began to question her motives. Eden wrote to friends in messages shared from the BBC that Badder “humiliated” her. She told them that Badder tried to throw away all her women’s clothes and told her to stop hormone therapy.
Eden also told friends that Badder advised her that she could not apply for asylum in the US, and that she should return to Saudi Arabia to do so. An American immigration expert said such tips would be wrong.
In December 2022, Eden members reported: “I go back to Saudi) with a lawyer and wishing the best.” Her suicide note on X makes it clear that the lawyer in question was someone called “Badder”.
Soon Eden said friends that the return was a mistake.
She reported them to say that her parents took away the passport, and the government instructed her to close her account X. Eden told her friends that she had evidence in which her parents hired people to return her to Saudi Arabia, though she never She shared these evidence.
“The lawyer who helped me in the shelter worked with my parents behind her back,” she said to one of them.
Over the next few months, Eden’s friends say she lost hope for Saudi Arabia.
She worked on a junior position in a technology campaign and in public assumed her original male identity. Eden reported a girlfriend to say that she tried to continue to take the female hormones, but her parents repeatedly confiscated them. Eden told friends that she had been suffering a constant verbal hearing, and sent them a video – what we saw – that she secretly recorded a family member, shouting that she was washed by the brains of Western ideas.
On March 12, 2023, Eden took his life.
We wanted to find “Badder” – the lawyer, who accused her of removing her and persuading her home, ask him more about the events that faced her death.
We were looking for lawyers of this name in the DC area, and one came: Badard Alamir. On the Internet was limited information about it, but an outdated catalog for professionals working in Eriyada gave their full name in Arabic – which, in turn, led us to an inactive account on Facebook, showing his photo in Harvard legal School.
In the texts of Eden, sent to a friend, she mentioned that her lawyer was formed in Harvard.
Then the source shared the most important photo taken by Eden from the apartment, Mr. Alamir installed it. We were able to overcome it in the residential block on the outskirts of Washington.
One man there told us that he knew Eden and saw her with Mr. Alamara.
He said that Eden had women’s clothing, jewelry and makeup, but he would have to hide her when Mr. Alamir approached. He made her cut her hair and told her not to shave, the witness said.
We have repeatedly tried to contact Mr. Alamara, but he did not respond. When we visited the address listed in its registration of the DC bar, we saw how the man who fits his photos hit the SUV and ride.
We followed, noting that the unusual number plaque of the car – its code showed that the car was released at the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Washington, and that the car was owned by the embassy.
The role of Dr -no Alamara at the embassy was in support of Saudi students in the United States – a lawyer who had previously worked with him.
For example, we have discovered news articles that emphasize the cases of Alamara, which help those who are left homeless, hurricane in Florida. But we also found that his assistance had spread to more controversial situations.
On October 13, 2018, two Saudi students were interrogated by the US police about the death of a novice rapper in North Carolina – a knife, after a quarrel with a couple.
Two months later, Abdullah Harira and Sultan Alsukhimi were accused of murder, but still left the United States.
Just four days after the knife, Mr. Harira found himself on the flight back to Saudi Arabia, tells an electronic message. It includes the details of the flights that our source told us, Mr. Alamir, organized for both Mr. Harira and Mr. Alsuhaimi.
No student never comments publicly in this case.
Mr -n Alomair was sent to the flights in a month, another shows an email that our source says he would need to receive compensation from the Saudi Arabian Embassy.
DeliveredAnother source says he worked with him to present dozens of other Saudi students in the United States against the allegations, ranging from speed to drink management.
“Badard will come at a meeting with the Arabic form led by the Saudi Arabian Embassy, so that students signed (which) promised to return the legal fees of the Saudi Arabian government as soon as they returned home.”
The source told us that the students would appear at the first hearing, but disappear before the next hearings, though we do not know if Mr. Alamir would do this.
In 2019, the FBI warned that Saudi’s officials most likely contributed to the escape of Saudi Arabia from the US trial.
“The FBI estimates that the officials of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia almost certainly help the citizens of Saudi Arabia, based in the US, avoid legal issues by undermining the US lawsuit. This assessment is made with high confidence.”
People outside the UK can watch a documentary on YouTube
The sources told us that Mr. Alomair continues to live and work in the US. It has several commercial properties around Washington, and in August 2024 it appears to have set up a new law firm in Virginia, where it is called a partner.
Michael Pocalik, Badier Alamir and the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Washington did not answer our questions.
We contacted the Eden family to ask if they wanted to take part in the story, but they didn’t answer.
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