Bloomberg: The OpenAI engineer accused of bugging a conference room says his one-way Saudi ticket predates the investigation.

Saudi Arabia’s consulate backs supervised release for the OpenAI engineer accused of bugging executives.

In a filing late Friday, lawyers for Abdulrahman Alfozan said his travel plans were made before he was ensnared in the government’s investigation, and that he bought the ticket on Sept. 13, 17 days before OpenAI found the device.

Prosecutors had cited the fact that Alfozan, his wife and another family member had booked one-way flights from San Francisco to Saudi Arabia via Istanbul as a sign he might flee.

His lawyers say the Oct. 12 flight date matched the day his wife had to leave under immigration rules, because her US work authorization had ended.