A former Twitter Inc. employee accused of helping Saudi Arabia crack down on dissidents says there should be no mention at his U.S. trial of the government’s involvement in the slaying of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.
Ahmad Abouammo, who is charged with acting as an illegal foreign agent in the U.S., is asking a federal judge to declare certain evidence off limits when he goes to trial in July in San Francisco. Prosecutors claim that while working as a Middle East media liaison for Twitter in 2014, Abouammo was recruited and paid by the Saudi royal family to look up confidential account details on users of the platform who had posted criticism of the regime.
Lawyers for Abouammo argued in a court filing late Friday that the narrow charges against him provide no justification for prosecutors to link him more broadly to actions allegedly taken by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia against government critics.
