A Saudi citizen who resides in Mississippi has been charged with lying to the FBI, according to recently unsealed court documents showing that the man had created secret social media accounts to harass critics of the Saudi government.
42-year-old Ibrahim Alhussayen is accused of lying to federal officials over an Instagram account that he was allegedly using to send harmful and threatening comments to those criticizing Saudi Arabia.
According to officials, Alhussayen has been living in the United States since 2013. During the timeframe in which he was sending threatening messages online, Alhussayen was also attempting to receive a Ph.D. While court documents reveal that Alhussayen has attended the University of Mississippi, his personal LinkedIn profile also shows that he had attended Jackson State University for graduate work.
During an interview with federal agents, Alhussayen claimed to have worked as an administrative advisor and consultant for the Saudi Royal Court until 2012. He claimed that his affiliation was strictly for education and that he was not doing any other work for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
In a followup interview, federal agents asked Alhussayen about his social media accounts. He falsely claimed that the only ones operated by him were under his personal name. Authorities had traced the harmful comments from Alhussayen’s pseudonymous account to a device that he possessed.
Later in the interview, Alhussayen confirmed that he and his family currently live in Brandon.
