Ex-Twitter employee convicted of spying for Saudi Arabia

Illustrative image of Twitter taken on April 26, 2022 in Washington, DC.

© OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP

Text by: RFI Follow

1 min

In the United States, a former Twitter employee has been convicted of spying for Saudi Arabia.

It provided user information to people close to the regime.

He faces up to 20 years in prison.

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A luxury watch, hundreds of thousands of dollars… These are the gifts that Ahmad Abouammo received from someone close to the Saudi monarchy.

In exchange, this Twitter employee provided the personal information of anonymous users who were critical of the authorities in Riyadh between the end of 2014 and the beginning of 2015.

Arrested in Seattle in 2019, Ahmad Abouammo has just been tried by a court in San Francisco.

He was found guilty of fraud, falsification of documents, money laundering.

Also guilty of acting on behalf of a foreign government.

He faces a sentence ranging from 10 to 20 years in prison.

"

 The evidence has shown that, for money and when he thought he was doing this out of sight, the defendant sold his position

[d'emploi de Twitter, ndlr]

 to a relative

 " of the royal family Saudi Arabia, federal prosecutor Colin Sampson told the jury last week after a two-week trial.

Respect for human rights

Saudi Arabia is regularly accused of not respecting human rights.

In 2018, the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who worked for the

Washington Post

in particular , created a diplomatic crisis with the United States and made Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman a "

pariah

 ", in Joe Biden's own words.

But since then, the latter has reviewed its policy.

Pushed by economic interests, the American president went to Riyadh in July, triggering the anger of human rights organizations.

►Also read: In 2019, Twitter deletes nearly 6,000 accounts linked to a Saudi influence network

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