A former Twitter employee was found guilty by a federal grand jury Tuesday of spying on behalf of Saudi Arabia and participating in a money laundering scheme.
Ahmad Abouammo, 44, was arrested after the alleged scheme in 2019 on charges of wire fraud and working as an agent of a foreign government without proper disclosure. He was accused of relaying personal user data to Saudi Arabia in exchange for a luxury watch and hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to the Justice Department.
ELON MUSK REVEALS TWITTER DEAL ‘SHOULD PROCEED’ IF KEY CONDITION MET
“The government gave you bits and pieces to create the picture they wanted you to see,” public defender Angela Chuang argued during closing arguments, per Court House News. “They want you to disregard everything else and throw out what doesn’t fit their story.”
Abouammo worked at Twitter from 2013 to 2015 and helped manage the company’s partnerships with prominent users in the Middle East and North Africa, the Wall Street Journal reported. A grand jury found him guilty of one count of wire fraud, money laundering, and falsification of records. He was deemed innocent of five additional counts of wire fraud levied against him.
During his time at Twitter, he allegedly obtained information about accounts that were critical of the Saudi government and relayed that information back to the kingdom, according to prosecutors. The data he amassed allegedly included phone numbers and email accounts.
Defense lawyers argued that the prosecution had failed to prove the allegations against him and that Abouammo was merely doing his job while working at Twitter. The 11-panel jury, however, was unconvinced.
Abouammo had been recruited in the scheme by Bader Binasaker, also known as Alzabarah to Al Asaker, who served as a top adviser to Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, prosecutors alleged. During the course of the trial, prosecutors presented a timeline of Abouammo’s meeting with Binasaker, including a tour he allegedly gave the Saudi adviser of Twitter’s headquarters in June 2014, Court House News reported.
A few months after the alleged tour, Binasaker gifted Abouammo a Hublot watch worth about $40,000, according to prosecutors. From there, Abouammo began receiving lucrative payments from Binasaker in an account opened in his father’s name to conceal where the payments came from, prosecutors alleged.
During the time he was wired payments, prosecutors alleged he sent personal user data to the Saudis. They estimate he accessed data from more than 6,000 Twitter accounts on behalf of the kingdom in 2015, per the Wall Street Journal.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Abouammo had pleaded not guilty to the charges when they were levied against him in 2019. At the time he was charged, he was working for Amazon, per the news outlet. He will face sentencing by U.S. District Judge Edward Chen.
The Washington Examiner reached out to Twitter for comment.
