Republican fundraiser Elliott Broidy filed suit against an American consulting firm and two influential Qataris on Thursday, adding to his previous charges that the tiny Gulf emirate had orchestrated the theft and leak of his emails.
Broidy, the owner of a security company with connections to the United Arab Emirates, alleged Mohammad bin Hamad Khalifa al-Thani, the brother of Qatar’s emir, and Ahmed al-Rumaihi, a former senior official in Qatar’s sovereign-wealth fund, organized the campaign to discredit him, according to an amended complaint filed in Los Angeles federal court.
In Thursday’s complaint, Broidy said he was targeted by the alleged hackers because he “spoke out forcefully and effectively against Qatar’s support for terrorism” and entered into a business relationship with Qatar’s rival, the UAE. The UAE and Qatar have been engaged in a long-running battle that resulted in an embargo on Qatar last year over the emirate’s alleged support for terrorist groups.
According to Thursday’s complaint, Qatar hired Global Risk Advisors, a firm run by a former Central Intelligence Agency operative, in October 2017 to help in the effort to discredit Broidy.
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