SAN FRANCISCO — A former Twitter employee was convicted on Tuesday by a jury in federal court of six charges related to accusations that he spied on the company’s users for Saudi Arabia.
While at Twitter, Ahmad Abouammo, 44, managed media partnerships in the Middle East and North Africa. He developed relationships with prominent individuals in the region, receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars and a luxury watch from a top adviser to Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman. In return, prosecutors said, he shared the personal user information of dissidents with Saudi officials.
The jury convicted Mr. Abouammo of two counts of wire fraud or conspiracy to commit wire fraud, two counts of money laundering, one count of falsifying records and one count of acting as an agent of a foreign government without properly disclosing that work. It found Mr. Abouammo not guilty on five counts of wire fraud or conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
The verdict comes at a fraught moment between the United States and Saudi Arabia, as the United States seeks closer Saudi-Israeli relations and relief from high gas prices. President Biden made his first visit as president to the kingdom last month, setting aside a promise to make it a “pariah” and exchanging a fist bump with the crown prince.
The visit was sharply criticized by human rights activists who said it diminished the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, the Washington Post columnist who was assassinated in 2018 by Saudi operatives.
Mr....
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