Bloomberg reports that Ahmad Abouammo, a U.S. citizen, faces 10-20 years in prison for spying on behalf of the Saudi Arabian government. The defendant was also charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, falsification of records and money laundering, as indicated by the verdict filed in federal court in San Francisco.
Another Twitter engineer involved in the case, Ali Alzabarah, has absconded to Saudi Arabia to avoid trial.
He is said to have been involved in the operation with another suspect named Ahmed Almutairi, who is now wanted by U.S. authorities.
From 2014-2015, Ahmad Abouammo worked for Twitter as a Media Partner Manager, where his main responsibility was to help specific clients promote their accounts.
Unfortunately, the position also gave him access to other Twitter users’ information, such as birthdays, email addresses, and phone numbers.
The government of bin Salman subsequently collected information on specific Twitter users in exchange for some luxury goods and cash through contacts with Abouammo and Alzabarah.
The investigation noted that the spying took place between November 2014 – May 2015.
Still, Abouammo argued at trial that he only accessed the limited information mentioned above as part of his day-to-day work, even going so far as to accuse Twitter of failing in its duty to protect the security of user data.
