A federal California court Tuesday dismissed Ali Al-Ahmed’s lawsuit against Twitter Inc. for suspending his account. Al-Ahmed is a Saudi analyst and critic granted asylum in the US.

US Judge Edward Chen for the US District Court for the Northern District of California ruled that Al-Ahmed’s amended complaint’s causes of action were time-barred and improperly pled. Additionally, Chen reasoned that the delayed discovery rule and continuous accrual doctrine did not save Al-Ahmed’s common law claims from the statute of limitations. Chen also ruled that the Communications Decency Act (CDA) gave Twitter immunity from Al-Ahmed’s federal claims.

Al-Ahmed argued that the statute of limitations on his claims did not start until the 2019 indictment of the former Twitter employees because of the delayed discovery rule. The delayed discovery rule postpones the accrual of the statute of limitations on a claim to when the plaintiff discovers the cause of action. However, Chen sided with Twitter and ruled that Al-Ahmed failed to rebut the presumption that he had notice in 2015 when Twitter sent him a notice that his account had been compromised.

Between 2013 and 2015, former Twitter employees accessed Al-Ahmed’s account without authorization and provided the information to Saudi officials. Chen’s opinion noted that Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal owns 5.2 percent of Twitter. In 2018, Twitter suspended Al-Ahmed’s account for alleged abusive direct messages. Al-Ahmed sued Twitter for the damages stemming from the alleged hack and suspension of his account and asserted several common law claims and federal statute violations.

Although Chen granted Twitter’s motion to dismiss, Al-Ahmed has thirty days to re-plead his delayed discovery argument.