Lawyer mentioned in trans student’s suicide note had Saudi embassy links, BBC claims
Eden Knight was a young trans woman who died by suicide after returning to Saudi Arabia from the US. (Eden Knight/Getty)
A lawyer mentioned in trans woman Eden Knight’s suicide note, and who is alleged to have persuaded her to return to her home country before her death, has links to the Saudi Arabian embassy in the US, the BBC World Service has claimed.
Knight, who was 23 and who had been living in the US as a student, came out as transduring the COVID-19 lockdowns. She wanted to apply for asylum there but took her own life in March 2023 after returning to Saudi.
Transgender people in Saudi Arabia face harassment, discrimination and persecution, as do other members of the LGBTQ+ community. Same-sex relationships are punishable by death and people can be imprisoned for speaking positively about queer rights.
In a suicide note shared on X/Twitter, Knight claimed her conservative parents had hired American “fixers” and a Saudi lawyer to pressure her into returning to the middle-eastern kingdom.
Knight said she was moved to temporary accommodation by the agents, who berated her, threw away her feminine items and coerced into de-transitioning with the promise of food and shelter. After returning to Saudi Arabia, she was denied access to hormone medication, she claimed.
“I did everything [they] asked. I cut my hair, I stopped taking oestrogen, I changed my wardrobe,” she wrote in her message, adding that she had been subjected to routine searches to see if she had stashed hormones and was left “tired” after they were discovered a third time.
“I wanted to be a leader for people like me but that wasn’t written to happen,” she said. “I hope the world gets better for us. I hope our people get old. I hope we get to see our kids grow up to fight for us. I hope for trans rights worldwide.”
Now, the BBC World Service has identified the lawyer Knight mentioned in her suicide note as Bader Alomair, and claim he worked at the Saudi Arabian embassy in Washington DC, as well as having links to other people returned to Saudi from the US.
In messages to friends, Knight said a lawyer named Bader, who the BBC believes to be Alomair, forced her to de-transition and told her she could not apply for asylum while in the US and had to return to Saudi Arabia to do so.
A US immigration expert told the BBC World Service that such advice would be incorrect.
“The lawyer helping me with asylum was working with my parents behind my back,” Knight alleged. In one message, she claimed to have evidence for this but did not reveal its nature.
Past newspaper reports appear to provide evidence of Alomair’s involvement with the embassy and he is named in cases involving other Saudi students in the US, such as those left homeless by a hurricane and others accused of crimes, ranging from drink-driving to murder.
“Bader would come to the meetings with an Arabic form headed by the Saudi embassy for students to sign [which] promised to pay back legal fees to the Saudi government once they returned home,” a source alleged, adding that the students would not turn up for subsequent court hearings.
In 2019, the FBI warned that it was likely that Saudi officials were helping citizens leave the US to avoid criminal proceedings.
Bader Alomair and the Saudi embassy in Washington DC did not respond to BBC questions. PinkNews has approached the Saudi embassy in Washington DC for comment.
Suicide is preventable. Readers who are affected by the issues raised in this story are encouraged to contact the Samaritans on 116 123 (www.samaritans.org), or Mind on 0300 123 3393 (www.mind.org.uk). Readers in the US are encouraged to contact the National Suicide Prevention Line on 1-800-273-8255.
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