The complaint said Almutairi recruited Alzabarah
and flew him to Washington, D.C., in the spring
of 2015, when a Saudi delegation visited the
White House.
“Within one week of returning to San
Francisco, Alzabarah began to access without
authorization private data of Twitter users en
masse,” the complaint said.
The effort included the user data of over 6,000
Twitter users, including at least 33 usernames
for which Saudi Arabian law enforcement had
submitted emergency disclosure requests to
Twitter, investigators said.
After being confronted by his supervisors at
Twitter, Alzabarah acknowledged accessing
user data and said he did it out of curiosity,
authorities said.
Alzabarah was placed on administrative leave,
his work-owned laptop was seized, and he was
escorted out of the office. The next day, he flew
to Saudi Arabia with his wife and daughter
and has not returned to the United States,
investigators said.
A warrant for his and Almutairi’s arrests were
issued as part of the complaint.