Advertisement
Advertisement
Saudi Arabia
Get more with myNEWS
A personalised news feed of stories that matter to you
Learn more
Al Jazeera news anchor Ghada Oueiss. Photo: Twitter

Al Jazeera anchor Ghada Oueiss sues Saudi and UAE crown princes over phone hack, harassment

  • She sued Mohammed bin Salman and Mohammed bin Zayed for allegedly hacking into her phone and stealing and doctoring images to silence her
  • The journalist claims she was a target of the harassment because of her reporting on human rights abuses
Saudi Arabia
An Al Jazeera news anchor sued the crown princes of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates for allegedly hacking into her phone and stealing and doctoring images to disparage and intimidate her on social media.

Ghada Oueiss claims she was a target of the harassment because of her reporting on human rights abuses, according to her complaint filed on Wednesday in Miami federal court.

Her suit names Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz of Saudi Arabia and Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan of the UAE as defendants, as well as other officials and agents of those nations.

Some of those officials used US-based entities such as the Saudi Arabian Cultural Mission to recruit US citizens in campaigns to attack critics of the regimes, according to the suit.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Photo: Xinhua

Oueiss says a Miami woman and a man in Orlando, Florida, were responsible for hacking her phone and lifting images, including a video screenshot doctored to make her appear nude and disseminated on social media.

The complaint follows other accusations that Saudi Arabia’s ruling family coordinated efforts to hack into the Twitter accounts of dissidents and that Mohammed bin Salman was behind the hack of a phone belonging to Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos.

Khashoggi fiancée sues Saudi crown prince in US over journalist’s murder

“Ms. Oueiss is one of the most recent of a list of journalists targeted by joint and coordinated efforts of Saudi and UAE leadership, which leverage multiple entities and vectors using social media harassment campaigns and targeted hacking efforts to defame, humiliate and harm dissidents,” according to the complaint.

The suit cites the 2018 murder of journalist and dissident Jamal Khashoggi as an example of the lengths the kingdoms will go to silence critics.

Representatives of the Saudi and UAE embassies in Washington couldn’t immediately be reached by email or phone for comment.

Post