A former Twitter manager was found guilty of acting as a foreign agent for Saudi Arabia and was convicted of fraud. When the ruling was released on Tuesday, a federal jury in San Francisco charged him with spying and selling private user information to the Kingdom's government.
Twitter Manager Convicted of Spying
Ahmad Abouammo, a dual US-Lebanese national, was in charge of managing relationships with journalists and celebrities in the Middle East and North Africa, reported RT.
According to a copy of the verdict, he faced 11 charges involving money laundering, deception, and working as an illegal agent of a foreign power, and was charged and convicted of six of them.
Prosecutors said the accused, 44, received more than $300,000 from the Saudis, as well as a watch worth more than $20,000, in exchange for revealing information about critics of their government, such as email addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth, and other data used to identify people behind anonymous accounts, noted Good Word News.
US prosecutor Colin Sampson said in his closing arguments to the California jury, "The evidence shows that, for a fee and believing no one was monitoring, the accused traded his position to an insider of the crown prince."
He went on to mention Bader Al-Asaker, a senior adviser to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman who is thought to have employed him, citing Mass News.
Defense of the Accused
A former Twitter manager explained that the gift was part of their culture, which is famed for its generosity and expensive gifts.
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While there appeared to be a plot to gather sensitive information about Saudi critics through Twitter, His defense attorney argued that the prosecution failed to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that he was a foreign agent for Saudi Arabia.
Even so, the ex-legal manager's team admitted that their client had broken Twitter's regulations by not informing the firm about getting payments and a watch from a person close to the Saudi crown prince.
In October 2018, the putative spy was charged for the first time, and another person was named a suspect.
A Saudi national who had previously worked at Twitter's San Francisco branch is also accused of acquiring more than 6,000 accounts' personal information on behalf of Saudi Arabia.
Of the two, the courts successfully prosecuted Abouammo, who was detained on November 19. However, Alzabarah fled the US and his family before the charges could reach him.
Twitter Admits To Being Hacked
According to reports, a system flaw gave a hacker access to the personal information of more than 5 million individuals.
Twitter notified users of a security vulnerability last Friday that had permitted "a bad actor" to access and sell account holders' personal information.
The tech giant concealed the number of hacked accounts, but media claims suggest that up to 5 million users may have been affected.
According to a business statement, the system issue, triggered by a code change in June 2021, enabled users to input an email address or phone number to find out if either was linked with a particular account.
Early in 2022, Twitter rectified the problem. The company, however, became alerted of a press report in July that indicated someone might have taken full advantage of this and was attempting to sell the data they had collected.
A Former Twitter manager accused as a foreign agent of Saudi Arabia was charged and convicted but another away before getting charged.
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