Epstein Data Wiki

November 5, 2010 Sir Bani Yas Forum, Abu Dhabi

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tagsevent, 2010, united-arab-emirates, abu-dhabi, foreign-ministry, international-peace-institute

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The Sir Bani Yas Forum was a retreat for foreign ministers held at the Qasr Al Sarab Desert Resort, Abu Dhabi, from November 5 to 8, 2010. This page records the arrangements the United Arab Emirates’ Ministry of Foreign Affairs made for one participant’s admission to it, Jeffrey Epstein, not a record of the forum’s own proceedings. Its agenda is headed “The Middle East, Energy & Security,” calls it the “Inaugural Annual Retreat,” and states that it was “Co-organised by the United Arab Emirates and the International Peace Institute.”1 Jeffrey Epstein, two years after his June 2008 Florida guilty plea, was added to the participant list four weeks after the agenda had been sent to his office; two messages record that Terje Rød-Larsen, the institute’s president, had cleared his invitation and asked for him to be added.23 An executive assistant at the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Abu Dhabi then asked for his passport page and photograph for security clearance and was sent the photograph, told his office that his accommodation would be booked, set out the terms on which he and his travelling assistant could take part, addressed his office’s request to charter a helicopter from Abu Dhabi airport to the resort instead of driving, and arranged for him to be met at Abu Dhabi airport by the ministry’s Protocol department.3456 In the fortnight before the retreat Epstein circulated its list of expected ministers and officials to six correspondents.7 Correspondence with the resort records his party arriving on the eve of the forum, and a message sent from the resort on November 5 places him there.89

No telephone number, address, passport detail or other identifier from any document cited here is reproduced. Several of these messages carry transmission damage in the print itself, where a character is lost and replaced by an equals sign; where a quotation crosses one, the lost character is supplied in square brackets.

Sequence

All dates 2010. Times are omitted except where the documents settle them, because the top header of a message in this production is in coordinated universal time while a stamp quoted inside a forwarded block is in the sending client’s own.

DateEventSource
Sep 29The executive assistant to the president of the International Peace Institute sends the draft agenda and a confirmed-attendance file to Epstein’s office, “From Mr. Terje Rod-Larsen for Mr. Jeffrey Epstein”2
Oct 24 to 30Epstein circulates the forum’s list of expected ministers and officials to six correspondents7
Oct 25Fabrice Aidan asks Lesley Groff for “the bio of Jeffrey with title and affiliations as well as all his contacts”; she sends a biography and Financial Trust Company’s St. Thomas address3
Oct 25Aidan to Pim Valdre: “As terje indicated, he cleared with HH that Jeffrey Epstein should be invited to the SBF”3
Oct 27Valdre to Lana Nusseibeh: Rød-Larsen “has invited Mr. Jeffrey Epstein, Chairman of Financial Trust Company, Inc to participate a business participant at Sir Bani Yas”3
Oct 27Mary McCallum, an executive assistant at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, asks Groff for “a copy ofhis passport” and a photograph, “as security clearance is being arranged currently for all attendees,” and for the aircraft registration3
Oct 27Epstein: “give them the tail number of the 727, and tell them 727,, does she need all pages?”10
Oct 27McCallum: “Accommodation will be booked for Mr Epstein”; she is seeking a user ID and password to register him on the ministry’s website4
Oct 27Epstein’s office gives an arrival of Thursday November 4 at 19:45 and the tail number of his Boeing 727, N908JE4
Oct 27McCallum sets out the invitation-only rule, the Chatham House rule, the cars “authorised by our Security services” and the limits on helicopter seats5
Oct 27Epstein’s office asks whether a helicopter could be chartered from Abu Dhabi airport to the resort instead of driving4
Oct 28A photograph of Epstein is sent to McCallum as an attachment named JE_headshot.jpeg4
Oct 30McCallum: he “will have accommodation,” and asks for flight details “so that we can adjust ground transportation from and return to Abu Dhabi airport”11
Oct 30Epstein’s office tells McCallum “it is possible Jeffrey now flies commercial and arrive[s] Abu Dhabi airport instead of Dubai”11
Nov 2Groff tells McCallum that Epstein “will no longer be taking his own pla[n]e”; a message the same day corrects an earlier mix-up over which flight had been sent to the ministry and reports that he has confirmed an Etihad flight from Paris to Abu Dhabi on the Thursday12
Nov 3An email asks the resort spa to book two treatments for 2 p.m. on Friday November 5, one of them for Epstein8
Nov 4The spa replies that it is fully booked that week because of the MOFA group8
Nov 4McCallum: “No trouble, he will be met by our Protocol department”6
Nov 4An email presses the spa again: “We arrive at your hotel this evening and are [p]art of the MOFA forum this weekend”8
Nov 5Agenda: participants’ arrival and check-in at the resort; welcoming dinner at 20:001
Nov 5A message sent from the resort describes Epstein introducing the writer to another participant, and a gift bag with a cover reading “Sir Bani Yas Forum”9
Nov 6Agenda: opening remarks by the two hosts, then a keynote address scheduled for Mahmoud Abbas1
Nov 8Agenda: a special address scheduled for Tony Blair, wrap-up by the two hosts, check-out at 17:001

The forum

The four-page agenda in the release runs from arrival on Friday November 5 to check-out on Monday November 8. The opening “Opening Remarks by Hosts” on the Saturday morning and the closing “Wrap-Up by Hosts” on the Monday are given to the same two people, “HH Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the United Arab Emirates” and “Terje Rød-Larsen, President, International Peace Institute.” The four working sessions are built around a group the agenda repeatedly calls “The Foreign Ministers,” who are “joined by” named outside speakers in each. The agenda schedules two keynote addresses on the Saturday, at 10:00 for Mahmoud Abbas and inside the evening programme for Arianna Huffington, and a special address for Tony Blair at 10:00 on the Monday. It is a schedule and it does not record that anyone spoke.1

How Epstein was added

On September 29, 2010 the executive assistant to the president of the International Peace Institute sent the draft agenda and a file of confirmed attendance to Epstein’s office, over the line “From Mr. Terje Rod-Larsen for Mr. Jeffrey Epstein” and “Here is the information for the meeting on November 6th.”2 The messages by which his place was sought from the UAE side are dated four weeks later.

On October 25 Fabrice Aidan, whose signature block on the same thread reads “Special Assistant to the Special Envoy of the Secretary-General,” wrote to Pim Valdre: “As terje indicated, he cleared with HH that Jeffrey Epstein should be invited to the SBF. All information is below. Can you pls pass it on to AD?” Earlier that day Aidan had asked Lesley Groff for “the bio of Jeffrey with title and affiliations as well as all his contacts,” and she had replied with a biography and the address of Financial Trust Company in St. Thomas, adding that she would copy Epstein’s travelling assistant into the correspondence.3

On October 27 Valdre wrote to Lana Nusseibeh: “I was informed yesterday that Terje, after discussions with HH, has invited Mr. Jeffrey Epstein, Chairman of Financial Trust Company, Inc to participate a business participant at Sir Bani Yas.” He added, “With apologies for this last minute addition, Terje would like that Mr. Epstein be added to the list of participants. He will travel in his own plane to Abu Dhabi, so no tickets are necessary, only accommodation for the duration of the forum.”3 The October messages use the honorific “HH” alone.

Two hours later Mary McCallum, an executive assistant at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Abu Dhabi, wrote to Groff: “I understand Jeffrey Epstein will be joining us at the Sir Bani Yas event - we will need a copy ofhis passport and ideally also a head and shoulders photo sent as soon as possible please as security clearance is being arranged currently for all attendees.” She asked for the aircraft registration and arrival details, she wrote, “so that I can arrange for a car to pick him up and take him out to the resort - also return details please.”3 Epstein answered the request himself. The ministry’s message reached him the same day and he wrote back: “give them the tail number of the 727, and tell them 727,, does she need all pages?”10 The office gave the arrival as Thursday November 4 at 19:45 and the tail number as N908JE, and sent a photograph the following day as an attachment named JE_headshot.jpeg.4

What the ministry did

McCallum’s messages of October 27 and 30 record a series of decisions taken about Epstein by name. She told Groff that only his main passport page and any extensions were needed, that “Accommodation will be booked for Mr Epstein,” and that she was “trying to obtain a user ID and password for you to register him on our website.”4 Three days later she wrote that no room details would be issued because “we have the whole resort,” that he “will have accommodation and we have noted his preferences,” and asked for his flight arrangements “so that we can adjust ground transportation from and return to Abu Dhabi airport.”11

On the same day she set out the terms of participation and the transport. Villas, she wrote, “are reserved for the Foreign Ministers.” Epstein’s travelling assistant would “not take part in the forum activities as this is strictly by personal invitation only for high level Foreign Ministers, business attendees and speakers and is being held under Chatham house rule.” The ministry had “(hopefully) secured the only available helicopters to take our Foreign Ministers in and out of the resort whilst advisors and other attendees business contributors, speakers and moderators will all travel to and from the resort by road in cars we have arranged and have been authorised by our Security services.” Seats on the helicopters were limited and she could not yet say “that there will be available space on a helicopter for Mr Epstein” and his travelling assistant, but “whatever happens we will ensure we will get them to the resort and back to their aircraft on 8th November.”5 Epstein’s office replied that his assistant was “only coming to escort Jeffrey on the trip as assistant and we absolutely know she will not be attending any of the events/meetings.”5 It also asked whether it would be possible to “charter a helicopter from the airport in Abu Dhabi and fly to the resort instead of drive.”4

The travel plan changed at the end of October. On October 30 Epstein’s office told McCallum that “it is possible Jeffrey now flies commercial and arrive Abu Dhabi airport instead of Dubai,” which is the first record of a change from the earlier plan of arriving by private plane at Dubai.11 On November 2 Groff told McCallum that Epstein “will no longer be taking his own pla[n]e” and asked her to “confi[r]m back with me receipt of this email and assure me of his pick up arrangeme[n]ts”; a message the same day corrects an earlier mix-up in which the ministry had been sent his departure flight from Dubai to Paris rather than his arrival flight into Dubai, and reports that he had confirmed taking an Etihad flight from Paris to Abu Dhabi on the Thursday and had asked that a car be organised to drive them to the resort.12 On November 4, in answer to a question about who to look out for at Abu Dhabi airport, McCallum replied: “No trouble, he will be met by our Protocol department - man on the ground there is Ali al Zaabi …”6

The list Epstein circulated

Between October 24 and October 30, in the sender’s own clock, Epstein sent out a pasted block listing the ministers and officials expected at the forum: twenty-two foreign ministers numbered in one sequence, then ten further figures under the heading “Other High Level Officials,” among them Abbas, Blair, Amr Moussa and Rød-Larsen. The block opens with a line addressed to him, “Jeffrey, your attendance would be greatly appreciated,” and none of the copies read for this page carries the header of the message in which he received it.7

Six recipients are named: Tom Pritzker, David Stern, Boris Nikolic, Peter Mandelson, an addressee shown as “Gmax,” and Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem, chairman of the Dubai ports group DP World, who replied “Ok great” from an address carrying the Dubai World Group’s disclaimer.71314 Pritzker answered, “I know several of these characters so if you go, I can give you some ‘hellos’ to lob in. You gonna do it?” Epstein replied the same afternoon, “1. going , and will lob”.15

At the resort

On November 3 an email to the resort’s spa asked to “book 2 treatments for this Friday, Nov. 5th at 2pm,” one of them “the Dawn Renewal for Jeffrey Epstein.” The spa replied on November 4 that it was fully booked for that week, its receptionist writing “because our hotel has MOFA Group (Ministry of foreign [a]ffair).” No reply and no booking appears in the exchange after that. A further email pressed the spa again: “We arrive at your hotel this evening and are [p]art of the MOFA forum this weekend. Is there nothing available at all [f]or this weekend? Sometime Friday would be our preference.”8

A message sent from the resort on November 5 describes Epstein introducing the writer to another participant, and reports that “JE got a a gift bag which contained a 64GB 3G iPad with a customized cover that says Sir Bani Yas Forum.”9 The doubled word is as printed. The sender’s name and address are blacked out and nothing about either correspondent is described here.

The search this page rests on

A full-text search of the released files on the phrase Sir Bani Yas returns 32 pages across 27 runs. All 27 were opened. Sixteen are copies of the list described above; four are the clearance and logistics thread; three are the agenda and two forwards of it; one is the message sent from the resort; and three are copies of a 2012 newspaper item about archaeology on the island, which has nothing to do with the retreat. A search on Qasr Al Sarab returns four pages across three runs: one is the spa exchange and one is a November 2 exchange with the resort about drive times from Dubai and Abu Dhabi airports, and neither is reached by the first search. A search on Bani Yas without the honorific adds five runs, all copies of a two-message exchange of November 2011 in which Epstein asked Bin Sulayem “how is bani yas”. Three of this page’s documents are returned by none of the three searches above: the ministry’s accommodation, invitation-only and helicopter message;5 its November 4 message about the Protocol department;6 and the November 2 change of travel.12 All three were reached instead by searching on the correspondents’ names and the subject lines. A reader can repeat any of these searches.

Response

No statement by the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs, by the International Peace Institute, by the resort or by any named official about Epstein’s presence at this forum appears in any document cited here, and the searches described above returned none.

The episode has been reported outside the release. Radio France’s investigation unit published an account of the released files on February 10, 2026 which carries a French rendering of the October 27 message about the invitation quoted here, matching it clause for clause.16 That report carries no comment from the ministry or from anyone acting for it, and no such comment was found through the routes available for this review.

International Peace Institute; Terje Rød-Larsen; DP World; United Nations; Lesley Groff; Tom Pritzker; Boris Nikolic; Financial Trust Company.

Footnotes

  1. “Sir Bani Yas Forum: The Middle East, Energy & Security, Inaugural Annual Retreat,” agenda, Qasr Al Sarab, Abu Dhabi, November 5 to 8, 2010, read from the page images. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00726612 pp.1–4. The image prints “Terje Rød-Larsen” with the diacritic; the machine text drops it. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  2. “Fwd: Sir Bani Yas - Agenda and list of participants,” forwarded to Jeffrey Epstein on September 29, 2010, carrying the message of the same day from the executive assistant to the president of the International Peace Institute, read from the page image. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00755058 p.1. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  3. Email thread “Fw: Jeffrey Epstein,” October 25 to 27, 2010, ending with Lesley Groff’s message of October 27, read from the page images. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA02421131 pp.1–3. The wording “copy ofhis passport” and “participate a business participant” is as printed. The Valdre and McCallum stamps quoted in this thread are rendered by one client inside one forwarded block, so they share a frame and the interval between them is two hours and two minutes. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8 ↩9

  4. Thread “RE: Jeffrey Epstein,” October 27 to 28, 2010, read from the page images. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00559387 pp.1, 3. Page 3 carries the ministry’s request for the main passport page, its statement that accommodation would be booked, Epstein’s office’s arrival and tail-number message, and its request to charter a helicopter instead of driving; page 1 is the covering message of October 28 sending the photograph. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8

  5. Mary McCallum to Lesley Groff, October 27, 2010, and Groff’s reply, both quoted inside a forward to Jeffrey Epstein of the same day, read from the page image. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA02421026 p.1. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  6. Mary McCallum, November 4, 2010, quoted inside a forward to Lesley Groff of the same day, read from the page image. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00559449 p.1. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  7. Copies of the circulated list, each read from the page image: to Tom Pritzker, October 24, 2010, https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00777906 p.1; to an addressee shown as “Gmax,” October 24, https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00777889 p.1; to David Stern, October 25, https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00777930 p.1; to Peter Mandelson, October 25, https://epstein-data.com/EFTA02415320 p.1; to Sultan Bin Sulayem, October 25, https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00753332 p.1; to Boris Nikolic, https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00897786 p.1, on which the pasted list is cut off mid-line and nothing is quoted from it. The top headers of these messages are in coordinated universal time. The last of them is stamped 31 October 00:54 +0000, which is the evening of October 30 in the clock the sender’s own client used. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  8. Email exchange with the resort spa, November 3 and 4, 2010, read from the page images. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA02317520 pp.1–2. The request of November 3 and the spa’s reply are on page 2 and page 1 respectively. The transmission damage in the quoted lines is in the document itself. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  9. Message sent from the resort on November 5, 2010, read from the page image. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00559466 p.1. Its header is stamped 14:07 +0000, which is early evening at the resort. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  10. Jeffrey Epstein’s message of October 27, 2010, quoted inside a reply of the same day, read from the page image. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA02421068 p.1. The spacing and the doubled comma are as printed. A redaction box follows the question mark and the quotation stops there. ↩ ↩2

  11. Mary McCallum to Epstein’s office, October 30, 2010, and Epstein’s office’s reply the same day reporting a possible change to a commercial flight, both quoted inside a forward to Jeffrey Epstein, read from the page image. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA02420850 p.1. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  12. Thread “Re: Booking Confirmation,” November 2, 2010, read from the page image. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA02319237 p.1. The quoted words carry transmission damage in the print and the supplied characters are bracketed. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  13. Sultan Bin Sulayem to Jeffrey Epstein, October 25, 2010, 12:23 UTC, quoting the list back and replying “Ok great,” read from the page image. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00753332 p.1. The stamp on Epstein’s message quoted inside it, 04:01 PM, is Gulf time. ↩

  14. Letter from Mohammed Sharaf, Group Chief Executive Officer of DP World, to Jeffrey Epstein, April 3, 2012, describing Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem as “our chairman,” read from the page image. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01147805 p.1. See DP World for that company’s correspondence with Epstein. ↩

  15. Jeffrey Epstein to Tom Pritzker, October 24, 2010, 21:12 UTC, replying to Pritzker’s message of 5:05 PM Eastern the same day, read from the page image. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00777906 p.1. The quotation is confined to the numbered items about the forum. The spacing in “1. going , and will lob” is as printed. ↩

  16. Stéphane Pair, “De New York à Paris, l’ombre d’Epstein plane sur un diplomate français,” France Inter (Radio France), February 10, 2026. https://www.radiofrance.fr/franceinter/podcasts/l-info-de-france-inter/de-new-york-a-paris-l-ombre-d-epstein-plane-sur-un-diplomate-francais-3751872 ↩

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