New York (AFP) – A general in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards has been charged in New York in connection with an alleged plot to assassinate a dissident Iranian-American journalist, US officials said Tuesday. The target of the alleged assassination plot was not named in unsealed court documents, but she has been widely identified as Masih Alinejad, who lives in New York.
“The Justice Department has now charged eight individuals, including an Iranian military official, for their efforts to silence and kill a US citizen because of her criticism of the Iranian regime,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said. “We will not tolerate efforts by an authoritarian regime like Iran to undermine the fundamental rights guaranteed to every American,” Garland said in a statement.
While there was no immediate comment from the Iranian government on the latest in the Alinejad case, Tehran has routinely rejected similar US accusations about alleged plots to kill US officials or politicians in the past. Alinejad posted about the charges on her X account, saying the alleged plot to kill her was a “stark reminder of the brutal lengths to which the Islamic regime will go to silence dissidents, even those far beyond Iran’s borders.”
Charges were unsealed Tuesday against Ruhollah Bazghandi, identified as a brigadier general in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and a former intelligence officer. Three other Iranians with “connections to the government of Iran” — Haj Taher, Hossein Sedighi and Seyed Mohammad Forouzan — were also indicted. None of them are in US custody and they are believed to be in Iran. They face charges of conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire and money laundering.
Four members of an eastern European criminal gang who were allegedly involved in the plot to assassinate Alinejad had already been arrested. “That group was not acting alone,” US Attorney Damian Williams said. “Today, we hold their Iranian masters to account, and allege that these Iran-based co-conspirators, including a brigadier general in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, directed the murder plot.”
According to the Justice Department, members of the eastern European crime network were “contracted” by Bazghandi and the other members of his network to murder Alinejad. In July 2022, a man hired to carry out the assassination was arrested near Alinejad’s New York home with a loaded AK-47 assault rifle.
The United States has also accused Iran of seeking to assassinate US officials in retaliation for the US killing of Revolutionary Guards commander Qassem Soleimani in 2020. A Pakistani man with alleged ties to Iran pleaded not guilty in New York last month to charges he tried to hire a hitman to kill a US politician or official. The State Department also announced a $20 million reward last month for information leading to the arrest of the alleged Iranian mastermind behind a plot to assassinate former White House official John Bolton.
© 2024 AFP
