A former Twitter Inc. employee convicted of spying for Saudi Arabia was ordered to serve 3 1/2 years in prison, capping a yearslong case that showed how the social media giant was vulnerable to security breaches perpetrated from within its own ranks.
(Bloomberg) — A former Twitter Inc. employee convicted of spying for Saudi Arabia was ordered to serve 3 1/2 years in prison, capping a yearslong case that showed how the social media giant was vulnerable to security breaches perpetrated from within its own ranks.
Ahmad Abouammo’s sentence handed down Wednesday by a federal judge in San Francisco falls about half way between the 7 1/4-year term prosecutors sought and what his lawyers asked for — home confinement or supervised release on probation.
Read More: Former Twitter Employee Convicted of Spying for Saudi Arabia
Abouammo, a US resident born in Egypt, was found guilty in August of charges that he acted as an agent for Saudi Arabia by turning over personal information of platform users critical of the Kingdom. He was also convicted of money laundering, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and falsifying records.
His conviction garnered national attention later that month when a former Twitter security chief-turned-whistle-blower told Congress that Abouammo’s spying reflected lax data security practices at the social media platform that posed a threat to national security.
“The seriousness of the offense is something that is prominent in this setting because of the nature of the trust that was violated” and potential serious consequences facing those who details were exposed to a regime that won’t tolerate dissent, US District Judge Edward Chen said at the sentencing hearing.
Chen also said there were “personal attenuating circumstances” given that Abouammo, who never fled the US, hasn’t been able to secure employment and filed for bankruptcy as he struggles to support his family. One of Abouammo’s two co-defendants, who also worked at Twitter and was also accused of feeding the Saudi government information about the platform’s users, left the US before he was charged and remains at large.
Abouammo, who worked as a media partnership manager for Twitter in 2015, maintained he was simply doing his job promoting the nascent social media network in the Middle East and North Africa. Prosecutors alleged his relationship with a top aide to Mohammed bin Salman, or MBS, now the de-facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, went much further — and darker — to help the Crown Prince silence his critics.
The jury was shown evidence that Abouammo received a Hublot watch and $300,000 in wire transfers — which the US said were bribes from the MBS aide, Bader Al- Asaker, in exchange for confidential Twitter account information on Saudi dissidents.
Dressed in a black jacket and trousers with a white shirt, Abouammo sat by his attorneys with his hands folded tightly together as if he was praying before his sentencing hearing started.
“I’m sincerely saddened and remorseful about the entire case,” Abouammo said before Chen announced his sentence. He choked up as he spoke about how the case hurt his three children, his wife and parents.
Abouammo must be given a “resounding deterring sentence” to send a message to technology company workers in Silicon Valley that “selling out users” to foreign governments “will not be tolerated,” Assistant US Attorney Colin Sampson said. A spokesman for the US Attorney’s Office in San Francisco didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the sentence.
Abouammo’s attorney, Angela Chuang, told Chen it was unfair that the government has made the former Twitter employee a “proverbial whipping boy” for human rights abuses by Saudi Arabia. Chuang declined to comment on the sentence.
Twitter didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Read More: US Says Accused Saudi Twitter Spy Vowed to ‘Delete Evil’
Prosecutors were prohibited by a court ruling from telling jurors explicitly that the US and human rights organizations believe Saudi Arabia under bin Salman has secretly detained and tortured its critics.
But they hinted at the brutal practices through an expert witness who testified about the changing politics and culture of Saudi Arabia, and through a woman who told jurors that her brother went silent in 2018 after he posted satirical criticism of the country on Twitter.
Federal public defenders who represented Abouammo argued for a sentence of probation because he had no criminal record and most of the behavior that got him convicted happened more than seven years ago. At that time, Abouammo was dealing with “serious upheavals” in his sister’s life, including specialized care for her newborn daughter and her sheltering at his home in an escape from an abusive husband.
The US said Abouammo’s crimes weren’t garden-variety business fraud; he was bribed by bin Salman’s right-hand man to “access, monitor, and convey the private user information of Saudi dissidents who criticized a powerful and repressive foreign government.”
Facing a serious sentence, Abouammo offers “a scintilla of remorse wrapped in numerous layers of blame, excuses, and minimization,” prosecutors said in a court filing. Prosecutors also sought three years of supervised release and a fine of $30,000.
The case is US v. Abouammo, 19-cr-00621, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (San Francisco).
(Updates with details from hearing)
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