A court in Saudi Arabia upheld a 20-year prison term imposed on a Saudi aid worker who had criticised the government on Twitter, drawing a rare public rebuke from the US in another sign of tension between the Biden administration and the kingdom.
The ruling, confirmed late on Wednesday, also upheld a 20-year travel ban on Abdulrahman al-Sadhan.
The case against him may have roots in an elaborate ploy that began in Silicon Valley and sparked a federal case against two Twitter employees accused of spying for Saudi Arabia. The men allegedly accessed the user data of over 6,000 Twitter accounts.
Al-Sadhan’s family has said his identity appears to have been among those leaked to Saudi authorities as the person behind an anonymous Arabic Twitter account that was critical of the government.