A former Twitter Inc. executive accused of spying for Saudi Arabia was found guilty yesterday of six criminal charges, including acting as the country’s agent and trying to cover up a payment from an official linked to the Saudi royal family, reported Reuters.
Ahmad Abouammo, a dual US-Lebanese citizen who on Twitter helped oversee relationships with journalists and celebrities in the Middle East and North Africa, was found guilty after a two-and-a-half-week trial in federal court in San Francisco.
Jurors acquitted him of five of the eleven charges he faced.
Federal public defenders representing Abouammo did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Twitter declined to comment.
Prosecutors said Bader Al-Asaker, a close adviser to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, recruited Abouammo to use his insider knowledge to access Twitter accounts and unearth personal information on Saudi dissidents.
Among those accounts was allegedly @mjtahiddthe pseudonym of a political firebrand who gained millions of Twitter followers during the Arab Spring riots by accusing the Saudi royal family of corruption and other misdeeds.
READ: Saudi religious official criticized for not mentioning Israeli strikes in his statement
Prosecutors said Abouammo received at least $300,000 and a $20,000 luxury watch from Al-Asaker, and hid the money by depositing it in a relative’s account in Lebanon and having it transferred to his own account in the United States.
Defense attorneys argued that the work Abouammo did on Twitter was simply part of his job.
Abouammo was also convicted of wire fraud and honest services fraud, money laundering, and one count of conspiracy.
“The government proved, and the jury found, that Abouammo violated a sacred trust to keep Twitter customers’ personal information private and sold customers’ private information to a foreign government,” US Attorney Stephanie Hinds said in San Francisco on Thursday. a statement.
Ali Alzabarah, a former colleague of Abouammo’s also accused of accessing Twitter accounts on behalf of Saudi Arabia, left the United States before being charged. Al-Asaker, the Saudi crown prince and Twitter are not among those charged.
–
