By ISABEL DEBRE, Associated Press
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — It all started with a message that appeared on Danah al-Mayouf’s phone from an anonymous Instagram account — a promise to help him ‘crush’ a $5million lawsuit dollars she had to face a pro-government Saudi model.
But, the mysterious texter said, she had to meet him in person.
It was December 2019, a year after the murder and dismemberment of prominent US-based Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, and al-Mayouf feared he would be kidnapped and brought back to the kingdom as a d ‘others.
“I can’t meet someone I don’t know,” al-Mayouf finally replied. “Especially with all the kidnappings and murders.”
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Now she’s glad she didn’t go. US federal prosecutors have arrested the man behind the posts, Ibrahim Alhussayen, 42, accused of lying to federal officials about using the fake account to harass and threaten Saudi critics – mostly women – living in the United States and Canada.
An FBI spokesperson declined to comment on the charges. A lawyer for Alhussayen did not respond to multiple requests for comment, nor did the Saudi Embassy in Washington.
An unsealed complaint last month in federal court in Brooklyn points to a broader probe into online harassment campaigns targeting Saudi dissidents in the United States and their relatives — part of a transnational crackdown that has alarmed US officials in recent years as various autocratic governments seek to punish critics abroad.
Earlier this year, for example, the Justice Department exposed a plot by agents acting on behalf of the Chinese government to stalk, harass and surveil dissidents in the United States.
The complaint comes as Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman continues to suppress opposition, both at home and abroad, while working to restore his image as a liberal reformer. The Saudi government has argued in the past that its critics incite violence, broadly defined, and pose a threat to the kingdom’s security.
Nevertheless, President Joe Biden met – and shared a heartfelt thumbs up with – Prince Mohammed during a diplomatic summit last week in Saudi Arabia.
The scenes drew scathing criticism from fellow Democrats and rights groups after Biden vowed to treat the kingdom as an “outcast” and held Prince Mohammed responsible for Khashoggi’s murder.
From Jeddah, Biden said he discussed the “scandalous” Khashoggi killing with Prince Mohammed and was “straightforward” on human rights issues, without giving further details.
“If something like this happens again,” Biden said of the Saudi government’s efforts to target dissidents abroad, “they’ll get that answer and more.”
While some accuse Biden of abandoning his promise to put human rights at the heart of his foreign policy with his trip to the kingdom, Alhussayen’s arrest in New York underscores that federal officials are increasingly scrambling in addition to prevent these rights violations from occurring on American soil. .
The kingdom’s campaign to silence critics has been going on in America for some time. In 2019, US prosecutors alleged that Saudi Arabia recruited two Twitter employees to spy on thousands of accounts, including those of US citizens and Saudi dissidents.
“This guy is just the tip of the iceberg,” said Abdullah Alaoudh, Gulf research director for Democracy for the Arab World Now, a Washington-based human rights watchdog. Alaoudh alleges that he was also harassed by Alhussayen although he is not named in the complaint. “It’s a much larger campaign by the Saudi government to reach people outside.”
Alhussayen was a graduate student at two universities in Mississippi. But online, the FBI says it was “@samar16490”, an account that ruthlessly insulted and threatened young women on Instagram in an apparent attempt to help the Saudi government.
Between January 2019 and August 2020, he reportedly had regular contact with a Saudi government employee who reported to a royal court official.
Prosecutors also said Alhussayen took screenshots of Khashoggi’s Twitter posts from a year before his death and kept photos of Khashoggi on his phone this year, revealing an obsession with Saudi dissidents.
Alhussayen has been accused of lying to federal authorities in three interviews between June 2021 and January 2022. The FBI says he told investigators he did not use any social media accounts other than those in his own name. .
Alhussayen’s victims regularly checked their phones to discover new waves of vitriolic attacks. As women critics of the Saudi government, they said Alhussayen’s warnings were part of a powerful campaign unleashed by legions of social media trolls.
“MBS will wipe you off the face of the earth, you will see,” Alhussayen reportedly told al-Mayouf, the Saudi activist, referring to the crown prince by his initials.
He allegedly threatened al-Mayouf with the fate of well-known Saudi women imprisoned in the kingdom, filling his texts with swear words.
From New York, al-Mayouf hosts a popular YouTube show that delivers biting takes on Saudi news and criticizes top officials.
For her and a few other victims, there were signs that Alhussayen’s intentions went beyond offense.
After al-Mayouf rejected his help in the trial and refused to meet, he went on a rampage. He attempted to obtain her whereabouts, according to the court filing, “to monitor and further harass her” in person. The complaint did not give details.
“I believe some of them are here in the United States,” she said of the online bullies who inundate her and her American fiancé with death threats every day. “I’m afraid something will happen to me.”
She and her fiancé moved after pro-government accounts posted their home addresses on Twitter.
Moudi Aljohani, a prominent Saudi women’s rights activist who has sought asylum in the United States, also believes Alhussayen was trying to gain her trust and lure her into a face-to-face meeting.
After denouncing the country’s male guardianship system on social media, Aljohani fled the kingdom and her parents’ suffocating grip in 2016. She fears her family will kill her if she returns.
Aljohani said she was shaken when Alhussayen contacted in 2020 from her fake Instagram account with a cryptic photo of a close family member.
But she, too, deserved his wrath when she didn’t respond. Alhussayen would have told him that he wanted to spit in his face. He said he hoped she met the same fate as Nada al-Qahtani, a Saudi woman who was shot and killed by her brother in a so-called “honor killing” in the kingdom in 2020.
In recent years, Aljohani has refrained from publicizing her views critical of the government due to what she described as a relentless smear campaign.
But a lower political profile didn’t help. She and the others live in fear of the reach of their government.
“The Saudis are paying a lot of money to fix their image and the way they see it, we are ruining it for them,” Aljohani said. “I feel like there is no safe place.”
Associated Press writer Eric Tucker in Washington contributed to this report.
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