Two former Twitter employees are said to have passed on the personal data of thousands of users to the Saudi Arabian authorities, including the data of numerous dissidents and critics of the monarch’s regime. The US Department of Justice claims that luxury goods, six-figure US dollar amounts and the prospect of jobs were exchanged for this.
against one of the men court proceedings started last week. Ahmad Abouammo, so die indictment, is said to have illegally requested data such as IP and e-mail addresses, telephone numbers and dates of birth from pseudonymous Twitter accounts between 2013 and 2015 and passed them on to his contacts in Saudi Arabia. The other accused, Ali Alzabarah, now lives back in Saudi Arabia, where he is responsible for a Foundation of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman works.
Tough gait against critics
The absolute monarchy cracks down on its critics. Threatening for satirical tweets decades of imprisonment, torture and executions of opponents of the regime are not uncommon. The murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018, for example, attracted international attention. He was lured to the embassy in Turkey under a pretext and executed there.
The details of one of Khashoggi’s confidants, Omar Abdulaziz, who lives in exile in Canada, are said to have been queried by the Alzabarah who fled. Abdulaziz has long been targeted by Saudi Arabia because of his proximity to Khashoggi: He was hacked with the notorious Pegasus spy software, and two of his brothers ended up in prison.
In the service of the king
Abouammo, who is now on trial in San Francisco, rejects the allegations. The query of such data was part of his job. As a manager, Abouammo took care of verifying prominent users in the Arab world. Among other things, he presented Contacted King Salman ibn Abd al-Aziz’s team.
According to the indictment, the inquiries began in 2014 after Abouammo met with a Saudi official in London. He is said to have received lists of account names and then spied on them. In order to disguise the flow of money, Abouammo founded his own company. The Saudi government transferred at least $300,000 there, according to the US Department of Justice.
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