An ex-employee of the microblogging and social networking service provider, Twitter has been charged with spying on users on behalf of Saudi Arabia and has been officially convicted.
Abouammo was associated with the organization in the Middle East at the company from 2014 to 2015. A federal criminal complaint filed by the US Justice Department was unsealed in late 2019 alleging the crime. Ahmad Abouammo was arrested in early November of that year.
Abouammo with dual US-Lebanese national has been guilty of compiling the personal Twitter information of anonymous users that spoke critically of the Saudi government and handing the data to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s close aide by a federal court in California.
He was also found guilty of charges including money laundering, conspiracy to commit wired fraud, and falsifying records.
The other ex-Twitter employee charged in 2019, Ali Alzabarah, fled to Saudi Arabia to escape being tried, per TechCrunch.
In exchange, the court found that the close aide gave Ahmad Abouammo a $20,000 luxury watch and deposited $300,000 to a Lebanese account set up in his father’s name. Ahmad Abouammo faced up to 20 years in prison.
Alzabarah is said to have met Almutairi at the residence of a Saudi diplomat in Fairfax, Virginia, in May 2015, during a visit to the US by Prince Mohammed. He fled the US with his family to Saudi Arabia in 2015 after being confronted over his actions by Twitter management. However, Twitter has declined to comment on the episode.
