Saudi trans student suicide note lawyer had embassy link

Her friends and followers were devastated when a prominent Saudi trans woman posted a suicide note to X. The memo, seen by millions, said the US lawyer — whom she was about to argue for asylum — persuaded her to return to her family and country that didn’t accept her identity.

The BBC World Services identified the man as Bader Alomair, who worked at the Saudi embassy in Washington, DC, the evidence suggests. He is associated with the controversial US returns of several other Saudi students.

Alomair has not responded to allegations filed in our investigation.

Edenite was one of the most respected families of the Middle East Kingdom. After participating in the Saudi government scholarship to study at George Mason University in 2019, Eden presented as a woman from her presentation as a man in early 2022, to take female sex hormones in women’s clothing. We have made the decision to move to.

Eden found a community on X and Discord, where she felt accepted and began to grow her follow online. In one post, she shared a photo of a Saudi Arabian ID photo next to her new woman’s appearance, and the post went viral.

Being transgender in Saudi Arabia is not tolerated by society or government. We spoke with Saudi Arabia, a transgender person who currently lives outside the kingdom.

So, returning to Saudi Arabia may have been difficult for Eden. Understanding that her student visa had expired around the time of her viral tweet, she decided to seek asylum in the US to stay there forever.

Eden said she was sent a message to an old friend who had kept in touch with American private detective Michael Paulico. He assisted in her claims of asylum and offered to repair her relationship with her family — according to Hayden, another friend who Eden lived in Georgia at the time.

Other friends share a message with us from Eden. This says Pocarico said he needed to move from Georgia to Washington, D.C.

According to the last message she posted to X, in late October 2022, private investigators met Eden on a train in the US capital. He was accompanied by a Saudi lawyer named Badar, she wrote.

“I was really optimistic and I believed this would work,” Eden said in her final post. She said Badder placed her in a lovely apartment near Washington, DC and did her sightseeing.

However, over time, it appears she began to question his motivation. Eden wrote to his friend in a message shared with the BBC. She told them that Badar tried to throw away all the women’s clothes and told them to stop hormone therapy.

Eden also advised her that Badar cannot apply for asylum in the United States and told her friends he must return to Saudi Arabia to do this. US immigration experts said such advice was wrong.

In December 2022, Eden told a friend, “I’m going (back to the Saudi Arabia) with my lawyer and wanting the best.” Her suicide notes on X reveal that the lawyer in question is someone called “Bader.”

It wasn’t long before Eden returned to his friend and said he was wrong.

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

“The lawyers who helped out in the asylum worked behind my parents and my back,” she told one of them.

Over the next few months, friends in Eden say they have lost hope of fleeing Saudi Arabia.

She worked in a junior position at a high-tech company and publicly envisioned her former male identity. Eden sent a message to a friend and said that he was trying to continue taking female hormones but his parents repeatedly confiscated them. Eden tells her friend that she is suffering from constant verbal abuse and sends a video to her friend — we saw it — she secretly cried out a family member screaming that she was brainwashed by Western ideas I recorded it in.

Eden took his life on March 12, 2023.

We wanted to find “badar.” Eden accused her of oppressing her and persuading her home, and asked more about the events leading up to her death.

We searched the DC area for an attorney with that name, and one person came out: Bader Alomair. Information about him online was limited, but an outdated directory for professionals working in Riyadh gave his full name in Arabic.

In a text that Eden sent to a friend, she said her lawyer was educated at Harvard University.

Sources then shared important photos Eden took from the apartment where Aromaia set up her. It was able to globalize into a residential block on the outskirts of Washington, D.C.

A person there said he knew Eden and saw her with Mr. Aromaia.

He said that Eden owns women’s clothing, jewelry and makeup, but that he must hide it when Mr. Aromaia arrives. He asked her to cut her hair and told her not to shave, the witness said.

We repeatedly tried to contact Mr. Aromaa, but he didn’t respond. When I visited the address listed on his DC bar registration, I saw a man matching his photos enter the SUV and escape in his car.

Noting the unusual license plates of the car, the code shows that the car was issued by the Saudi Embassy in Washington, DC, and the owner of the vehicle was staffed by the embassy.

Aromaa’s role at the embassy was to support Saudi students in the US.

For example, I discovered a news article highlighting the case of Aromaa, who helped people who were left homeless by a Florida hurricane. However, we found his support to be more controversial.

On October 13, 2018, two Saudi students were questioned by US police about the death of an aspiring rapper in North Carolina after an argument with the pair.

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

Just four days after the stab wound, Mr. Hariri was on a flight back to Saudi Arabia. This includes details of the home of the house that Aromaia told our sources that he organized for both Mr. Hariri and Mr. Alsheimi.

Neither student has publicly commented on the incident.

Alomair will receive another email saying that he was sent a flight bill a month later. Our sources say they need to get a refund from the Saudi embassy.

Another source said he worked with him to represent dozens of other Saudi Arabian students in the United States against charges ranging from speeding to drinking driving.

“Badar will come to the meeting in Arabic format led by the Saudi Arabian Embassy to undertake a pledge to sign (this) that the student will return home to pay off legal fees to the Saudi government. .”

Sources said students will appear at the first hearing but disappear before subsequent hearings, but it is unclear whether Aromaa has any role in this.

In 2019, the FBI warned that Saudi officials are likely to encourage Saudi citizens to escape from US legal proceedings.

“The FBI ratings that officials from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia almost certainly support US-based Saudi citizens, avoid legal issues and undermine the US judicial process. This assessment is confident in its efforts to It’s been done.”

Sources say Aromaia continues to live and work in the United States. He owns several commercial properties around Washington, DC, and appears to have established a new law firm in Virginia in August 2024.

Michael Paulico, Badar Aromaa and the Saudi Embassy in Washington, DC did not answer our questions.

We contacted the Eden family and asked if they wanted to participate in this story, but they did not respond.

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