Tech

Former Twitter employee found guilty of spying for Saudi Arabia


SAN FRANCISCO – A former Twitter employee was found guilty by a jury in federal court of six on Tuesday the charges related to his alleged stalking about the company’s users for Saudi Arabia.

While at Twitter, Ahmad Abouammo, 44, manages media partnerships in the Middle East and North Africa. He has developed relationships with prominent individuals in the region, receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars and a luxury watch from the top advisor to the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman. In return, prosecutors said, he shared the dissidents’ personal user information with Saudi officials.

The jury convicted Mr Abouammo on two counts of electronic fraud or conspiracy to commit cell phone fraud, two counts one count of money laundering, one count of falsifying records and one count of acting as an agent of a foreign government without accurately disclosing that work. It found Mr Abouammo not guilty of five counts of telephone fraud or conspiracy to commit cell phone fraud.

Abouammo’s trial ended on Thursday, and the jury of six men and five women took 17 hours to reach a verdict.

Mr. Abouammo was arrested in 2019. Ali Alzabarah, another former Twitter employee also charged in the scheme, fled the country before being arrested. Some of the charges on which Mr. Abouammo was acquitted involved contacts between Mr. Alzabarah and Saudi officials, suggesting that the jury did not believe that Mr. Abouammo influenced his colleagues’ actions.

Prosecutors described Mr Abouammo as a fraudster who sold access to his personal user information to Saudi Arabia. Prosecutors said Saudi representatives paid Mr Abouammo to obtain and share information about dissidents and other Twitter users.

“Power. Greed. Lies. You’ve heard this story, told by evidence, here in this courtroom,” Eric Cheng, an assistant US attorney, said in the statement. end.

Mr. Abouammo’s lawyers describe him as just a Twitter employee doing his job. Prosecutors failed to connect Mr. Abouammo’s access and payment information to the actual sharing of that information, his attorney said.

“Even if you think Mr. Abouammo could or might have done it, you have to vote not guilty,” said Angela Chuang, a federal public defender who represents Mr. Abouammo and is the lead attorney in the case. case, said in the closing statement.



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