A former Twitter employee was found guilty on Tuesday of spying on users of the social network on behalf of Saudi Arabia, seeking to learn the identity of people critical of the regime and the royal family.
A jury in a San Francisco court decided that Ahmad Abouammo sold personal information about anonymous users to Riyadh, in exchange for tens of thousands of dollars.
He faces between 10 and 20 years in prison for acting on behalf of a foreign government and for money laundering, fraud and forgery of documents. Judgment on him will be handed down at a later date.
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This verdict comes after human rights advocates criticized Joe Biden and Emmanuel Macron for their diplomatic policy towards Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, marginalized from the international scene after the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate. Arabia in Turkey in 2018.
Many NGOs regularly accuse the leader, nicknamed “MBS,” and his regime of spying on, kidnapping and torturing dissidents, which Riyadh denies.
Ahmad Abouammo was arrested in Seattle in November 2019. The prosecution accuses him, as well as another former Twitter employee, Ali Alzabarah, of having been contacted by Riyadh in late 2014 and early 2015 to transmit accessible user data. only internally (email address, phone number, date of birth, etc.).
Mr. Abouammo left Twitter in 2015. Ali Alzabarah, a Saudi, left the United States.
“Pocket money”
Angela Chuang, a lawyer for Ahmad Abouammo, admitted that a Saudi operation could have been organized seven years ago to obtain information about opponents of Twitter employees.
But according to her, her client was tried instead of Mr. Alzabarah. “It’s obvious that the defendants the government was looking for are not there,” she said.
Twitter, requested by AFP, declined to comment on the verdict.
The platform accuses its former employee of not having respected company rules by not declaring to his superiors that he received $100,000 and a watch valued at more than $40,000 from a close friend of the Saudi monarchy.
It was “pocket money” for Saudis accustomed to wealth, Ms Chuang told the jury.
Source: BFM TV
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