Ex-Twitter employees charged with spying for Saudi Arabia

(Image credit: Loic Venance/AFP/Getty Images)

published 7 November 2019

The Department of Justice on Wednesday charged two former Twitter employees with spying for Saudi Arabia, accusing the men of accessing information on Saudi dissidents who use the social networking site.

The DOJ alleges that in 2015, Ahmad Abouammo, a U.S. citizen, spied on three users, and Ali Alzabarah, a Saudi citizen, accessed the personal information of more than 6,000 Twitter users, including prominent dissident Omar Abdulaziz. Ahmed Almutairi, a Saudi citizen with ties to the Saudi royal family, was also charged, and is accused of being the point person between Saudi officials and the Twitter employees.

Abouammo was arrested on Tuesday. Alzabarah and Almutairi are believed to be in Saudi Arabia, The Washington Post reports. All three men are accused of working with a Saudi official who runs one of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's charitable organizations. This is the first time federal prosecutors have ever charged Saudis with spying inside the United States. For more on the case, and Twitter's response, visit The Washington Post.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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