Twitter staff allegedly spied for Saudis

▶ US accuses two former employees of sharing private data with kingdom

Two former employees of Twitter and a third man from Saudi Arabia face US charges of spying for the kingdom by digging up private user data and giving it to Saudi officials in exchange for payment, a complaint from the Department of Justice shows.

Ali Alzabarah and Ahmad Abouammo, who used to work for Twitter, and Ahmed Almutairi, who then worked for the Saudi royal family, face charges of working for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia without registering as foreign agents, according to the complaint filed against them on Wednesday.

The indictment points an unusually public finger at Saudi Arabia, a US ally that maintains warm ties with President Donald Trump.

Many Republican and Democratic lawmakers are already deeply critical of Riyadh’s conduct of the war in Yemen and the 2018 murder at a Saudi consulate of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who had US residency and wrote for The Washington Post. Despite the pressure, Trump has stood by the kingdom and its Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, who appears in the complaint as Royal Family Member-1, according to The Washington Post, which initially reported the charges.

The charges also put Silicon Valley companies in the spotlight once again over how they protect the intimate details they collect about their users.

According to the complaint, Abouammo repeatedly accessed the Twitter account of a prominent critic of the Saudi royal family in early 2015. At one instance, he was able to view the email address and telephone number associated with the account.

He also accessed the account of a second Saudi critic to get personally identifiable information.

Twitter uncovered Alzabarah’s unauthorized access of private data and placed him on administrative leave in late 2015, but not before he had tapped data from over 6,000 accounts, including 33 for which Saudi authorities had submitted law enforcement requests to Twitter, the complaint said.

Almutairi, for his part, is accused of acting as a go-between for the Saudi government and the Twitter employees.

The two former Twitter employees were given cash and other rewards, such as an expensive watch, in exchange for the information they shared, the complaint said.