US businessman Elliott Broidy has filed a lawsuit to a California court in which he accused former UN special envoy to Yemen Jamal Benomar of being a secret agent working for Qatar, POLITICO newspaper reported. 

Broidy, a fundraiser for President Donald Trump who is suing Qatar and several individuals over the hacking of his emails last year, cited unspecified evidence turned up during discovery as the basis for those claims.

Benomar, a UK citizen, was born in Morocco, where he was arrested and tortured for his opposition to the country’s government. He went on to work for 25 years at the UN, where he served as a special envoy for Yemen and a special adviser to former Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

The allegations come at a time when Washington is grappling with the problem of covert foreign influence in US politics. On Monday, the Justice Department indicted Russian citizen Mariia Butina on charges of acting as an unregistered agent of Vladimir Putin’s government. In recent months, special counsel Robert Mueller has reportedly expanded the scope of his probe beyond Russia to examine the influence of energy-rich Persian Gulf state in the U.S.

According to Broidy’s filing, a man picking up Benomar’s cell phone said, “Hello, hello, hello” and hung up when called by Broidy’s lawyer. Similarly, when called by POLITICO, a man picking up Benomar’s cell phone repeatedly said “hello” before hanging up. Benomar did not respond to follow-up text messages or to a message left at his home in New York.

According to the filing, Benomar’s wife has told Broidy’s team that Benomar is traveling internationally.

“Unregistered foreign agents shouldn’t be able to flee the country when they’re exposed in order to avoid accountability in the U.S. justice system,” Lee Wolosky, a lawyer for Broidy, told POLITICO.