San Francisco: A former Twitter employee in the US has been indicted for acting as an agent for Saudi Arabia and leaking personal data of users critical of the Saudi government. US citizen Ahmed Abuammo was working at Twitter as Media Partnership Manager for the Middle East region. Ahmed is accused of acting as an agent for Saudi Arabia without registering with the US government three years ago.
After hearing these cases, a jury found Ahmed guilty on six counts, including conspiracy to commit wire fraud and serious charges like money laundering. However, Ahmed was also acquitted of five other charges related to wire fraud. For the first time since the espionage scandal opened, Saudi Arabia has been seriously accused of spying in the US through its vast oil reserves and security equipment. A 2019 FBI complaint alleged that Abuammo and Saudi national Ali Alzabarah abused their positions to access confidential Twitter data about users, their email addresses, phone numbers, and IPs.
A third person named in the complaint, Ahmed al-Mutari, a Saudi national, was accused of acting as a mediator with the Saudi royal family. According to the complaint, data from more than 6,000 Twitter accounts was accessed, which included the names of at least 33 users.
