Topline
A former Twitter employee was convicted in federal court Tuesday for giving the government of Saudi Arabia information about regime critics’ social media accounts, according to multiple news outlets, as the kingdom faces criticism for its efforts to crack down on dissent—a gambit that has sometimes extended beyond the Arabian Peninsula.
A sign is posted on the exterior of Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco.
Key Facts
Jurors in San Francisco found 44-year-old Ahmad Abouammo guilty of acting as an agent of a foreign government, falsifying records, two money laundering counts and two wire fraud counts on Tuesday, but acquitted him on five additional wire fraud counts, according to a verdict form obtained by Courthouse News.
In a two-week trial that ended Thursday, prosecutors alleged Abouammo—whose two-year stint at Twitter ended in 2015—accepted cash payments and a luxury watch in exchange for looking up email addresses, phone numbers and other private data of people who had used Twitter to anonymously criticize Saudi Arabia.
Federal officials arrested Abouammo in October 2019 and also charged two other defendants who are believed to be in Saudi Arabia, including another former Twitter employee who was accused of giving private data to Saudi officials, and a man who allegedly served as a go-between for Saudi Arabia and the two Twitter workers.
Defense attorneys for Abouammo—who pleaded not guilty—argued during the trial he was merely performing his duties as a media partnership manager for Twitter’s operations in the Middle East, according to the New York Times.
Forbes has reached out to the U.S. attorney’s office in San Francisco and Abouammo’s lawyer for comment.
Key Background
Prosecutors say Abouammo was recruited to hand over Twitter data by Bader al-Asaker, an aide to Saudi Arabia’s crown prince and de facto leader Mohammed bin Salman. It’s one of several alleged attempts by Saudi officials to stifle criticism of the government, a practice that became especially notorious after the 2018 murder of Washington Post writer and regime critic Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi embassy in Istanbul (U.S. intelligence agencies believe Mohammed bin Salman approved the killing, which Saudi Arabia has denied). Meanwhile, Saudi officials set up a troll farm designed to stifle criticism on social media, the Times reported in 2018, and Israel’s NSO Group reportedly halted its contracts with Saudi Arabia amid concerns NSO spyware was being used to monitor dissidents. This crackdown has often clashed with the reformist image that Mohammed bin Salman initially cultivated: Under the crown prince’s leadership, Saudi Arabia lifted a widely criticized ban on women driving, but still kept an activist who protested the ban in prison for almost three years.
Tangent
Over the last two years, the Department of Justice has brought charges against several people accused of helping foreign governments stifle dissent. Iranian intelligence agents were charged with plotting to kidnap an Iranian regime critic who lives in New York, Belarusian officials were charged with piracy for forcing a commercial plane that was carrying a dissident to land, five people were accused of spying on Chinese regime critics living in the United States and a China-based staffer for Zoom was reportedly charged with shutting down video calls commemorating the Tiananmen Square protests. In some of these cases, the defendants aren’t in the United States, which could make arresting or prosecuting them difficult.
Further Reading
Saudis’ Image Makers: A Troll Army and a Twitter Insider (New York Times)
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/joewalsh/2022/08/09/ex-twitter-employee-convicted-of-sending-private-data-to-saudi-government/