A former Twitter employee, Ahmad Abouammo, was found guilty of spying for Saudi Arabia and releasing private user information of those who publicly criticized the country in exchange for large sums of money.
Abouammo, 44, was accused of using his position as an engineer at Twitter to access confidential data about users, their email addresses, phone numbers and IP addresses that can give up their location.
He then passed that information on to a Saudi government official in exchange for a luxury watch and hundreds of thousands of dollars, prosecutors claimed.
Abouammo, a member of an eleven-person jury, was found guilty on Tuesday of conspiracy to spy, money laundering and falsification, as well as one charge of wire fraud. According to The Wall Street Journal, he was also found not guilty of five additional counts related to wire fraud.
His court appearance is set for Wednesday.
Ahmad Abouammo, an ex-Twitter employee was found guilty for spying on Saudi Arabia and disclosing private user data of people who criticized the country publicly in return for large amounts. Pictured leaving Santa Rita Prison in Dublin in November 2019
Abouammo, a dual US and Lebanese citizen, worked for the social media platform from 2013 to 2015. From 2013 to 2015, he managed media partnerships for high-profile users from the Middle East or North Africa.
Prosecutors claimed the father-of-three was recruited into the spying scheme in 2014 by Bader Binasaker, an aide to then-Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
They met while Binasaker was visiting Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters. The two formed a close relationship soon after.
In December, approximately six months later, Abouammo met with Binasaker in London while on a work trip. According to investigators, he returned from the US with an expensive watch worth more than $40,000
‘That luxury watch—it was not free,’ prosecutor Eric Cheng said during closing arguments last week. “The kingdom has now obtained its twitter insider.”
Prosecutors said that a week after the England trip Abouammo began accessing data from the anonymously run account ‘mujtahidd.’
Binasaker wanted the account to be closed, according to reports. However, it remains open today.