Former Twitter Employee Convicted in US of Spying for Saudi Arabia

A former Twitter employee was convicted in United States federal court of spying for Saudi Arabia. Ahmad Abouammo, who is a US citizen, was convicted on Tuesday in San Francisco of failing to register with the US government as an agent for Saudi Arabia. It is the first time that Saudi Arabia has been accused of spying in the US. Abouammo is the former media partnership manager for Twitter’s Middle East region. Prosecutors told jurors that Abouammo sold Twitter user information for hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and an expensive watch in late 2014 and early 2015; shortly after, he quit Twitter. A second former Twitter employee, Ali Alzabarah, is alleged to have worked with Abouammo in getting private information on accounts putting up posts critical of the Saudi regime. Prosecutors accused the men of being hired by Saudi officials between late 2014 and early the following year to get private information on the holders of the anti-Saudi accounts. They used their credentials to obtain email addresses, phone numbers, birth dates and other private data to identify people behind the anonymous Twitter accounts, over 6,000 of them, according to prosecutors. Alzabarah also is wanted on a charge of failing to register in the United States as an agent of a foreign government.