Man who deleted Trump’s Twitter account emerges from closet

A German man has come forward as the former Twitter Inc employee who shut down the account of US President Donald Trump for 11 minutes this month on his last day of work at the social network.

The technology news website TechCrunch published an interview on Wednesday with Bahtiyar Duysak, in his twenties, with Turkish roots but born and raised in Germany. He was a temporary contract worker in San Francisco for Twitter, and has now returned to Germany.

The President's account suddenly disappeared without explanation, and for 11 minutes the world enjoyed a brief respite from his constant and often controversial barrage of tweets (See: Twitter employee deactivates President Trump's Twitter account).

Twitter later revealed a 'rogue' employee was behind the account being deactivated and the story made international headlines.

Duysak, who had not previously been identified as the person behind the takedown, told TechCrunch that he considered Trump's temporary silencing a ''mistake'' and never thought the account would get deactivated.

It was not a planned act, he said. Rather, he said, the chance to shut the account fell into his lap near the end of his scheduled final shift, and he decided to take it.

''There are millions of people who would take actions against him if they had the possibility. In my case, it was just random,'' Duysak said in a video of the interview posted online. He wore a gray sweater emblazoned with the American flag.

Twitter on Wednesday would not confirm whether Duysak was the ex-employee in question or answer other questions. Various publications have tried to reach Duysak without success.

BuzzFeed News, citing two anonymous sources, reported separately that Duysak was the ex-employee responsible for deactivating the acount.

"I didn't do any crime or anything evil, but I feel like Pablo Escobar," he told TechCrunch. ''And slowly it's getting really annoying."

Duysak fears for his future employment prospects and wants to downplay his actions.

He said the incident began when someone registered a complaint about Trump's account on his last day at Twitter's headquarters in San Francisco, and as a member of the Customer Support team he was responsible for dealing with it.

TechCrunch reports that Duysak made a "throwaway" decision to treat the complaint as legitimate and recommend Trump's account for deactivation. He then left the building not believing that it would actually happen.

"In my opinion it was definitely a mistake," he said. "And if I'm involved in this I really apologise if I hurt anyone ... I didn't do anything on purpose. "I had a wild time in America. I was tired sometimes ... and everyone can do mistakes.

"I think it's all about a number of coincidences. I didn't hack anyone. I didn't do anything I wasn't authorised to do. I underline that I didn't break any rules." Nevertheless, Duysak has been hailed a hero in some quarters for his actions.

Asked about tongue-in-cheek suggestions he should be given the Nobel Peace Prize he said, "I think it should be accepted by the one who deserves it!

"These are just comments. As I said, I find myself in a number of coincidences. For me it's just a coincidence and that's it."

Duysak is a former volunteer security guard at a Muslim community centre in California, BuzzFeed reported. Trump has been critical of Muslims, calling during the 2016 US presidential campaign for a ''total and complete shutdown'' of Muslims entering the United States.

The takedown of Trump's account on 2 November sparked concerns among Twitter users over how much power employees have over sensitive accounts and whether abuse of their power could lead to international incidents.

Twitter said in a statement on Wednesday, ''We have taken a number of steps to keep an incident like this from happening again.''

Duysak did not shed much light on the incident. Near the end of his last day at the San Francisco-based company, an alert came to him that someone had reported Trump's account for an unspecified violation, he said.

Duysak put the wheels in motion to deactivate it, TechCrunch said, although the account did not go offline until hours later. Neither Duysak nor TechCrunch explained the delay.