A former Twitter Inc manager found guilty of spying for Saudi Arabia has been sentenced to 3.5 years in prison, the U.S. Attorney's Office said, Reuters reported.

Ahmad Abuhammo was found guilty by a jury after a trial in San Francisco federal court.

Prosecutors demanded just over seven years in prison, saying they wanted a sentence severe enough to deter others in the technology and social media industry from selling the data of vulnerable users. Abuhammo faced a maximum sentence of decades in prison.

The case centered on Abuhammo's attempts to find information about two Twitter users, a $42,000 watch he received from a Saudi official, and a pair of $100,000 bank transfers.

Prosecutors said Abuhammo, who oversaw Twitter's relationships with journalists and celebrities in the Middle East and North Africa, passed sensitive information from the company's systems to help Saudi authorities identify and locate Twitter users of interest, potentially exposing them to prosecution.

Abuhammo's lawyers said that while he was working on Twitter, his family was struggling to cope with the serious upheaval in his sister's life, including specialized medical care for her newborn daughter.

Lawyers also said Abuhammo's actions pale in comparison to those of Ali Alzabara, another former Twitter employee accused of accessing thousands of Twitter accounts on behalf of Saudi Arabia. Alzabara left the United States before he was indicted.