US charges Iran Revolutionary Guard official in alleged plot to kill a human rights activist in NYC
FILE - Iranian dissident Masih Alinejad answers questions during an interview with The Associated Press, Friday, Sept. 23, 2022, in New York. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — Federal prosecutors on Tuesday charged a senior Iranian military official and three others with links to that country’s government with plotting to kill an Iranian American author on U.S. soil — a development lauded by the alleged target.
“This is a beautiful day for me. It’s like I’ve been given a second life,” Masih Alinejad said of her reaction after eight FBI agents and Justice Department officials told her about the charges filed against Brig. Gen. Ruhollah Bazghandi, a senior official in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, and three other men.
Bazghandi, who previously served as chief of the Revolutionary Guard’s counterintelligence department, and the three other defendants live in Iran and remain at large, according to prosecutors. Five others were previously charged in the alleged plot, including three people who are in custody.
Alinejad, 48, said she “screamed out of joy” when she was first told of the new charges and how they show that the Iranian government was involved in the plot against her. She hugged each of the agents and officials before breaking into tears.
“Oh my god. I love America. Thank you,” she recalled telling them.
Alinejad, an author and contributor to Voice of America, fled Iran following the country’s disputed 2009 presidential election. She said she found it remarkable to live in a country now where government authorities work to protect her even though “I am criticizing them everywhere.”
Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said in a news release that the United States “will not tolerate efforts by an authoritarian regime like Iran to undermine the fundamental rights guaranteed to every American.”
He added: “Three of the defendants charged in this horrific plot are now in U.S. custody, and we will never stop working to identify, find, and bring to justice all those who endanger the safety of the American people.”
In January 2023, prosecutors unsealed charges alleging that members of an Eastern European crime group engaged in a plot to murder Alinejad, although she was not identified by name in court papers or government releases.
The Iranian opposition activist and journalist has been living in exile in New York City. She confirmed to the AP that she was the intended target.
In the news release, U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said the U.S. hopes that Tuesday’s charges against Iran-based defendants will “strike another public blow at the heart of the Government of Iran’s efforts to execute the victim — as well as its lethal targeting, intimidation, and repression of other Iranian dissidents critical of the regime in the U.S. and abroad.”
In October, 2017, the Office of Foreign Assets Control, a wing of the U.S. Department of Treasury, designated the Revolutionary Guard as a global terrorist group, saying it had played a key role in supporting Iran’s involvement in international terrorism.
In April 2023, the office said Bazghandi was involved in assassination plots against journalists, Israeli citizens and others deemed enemies of Iran, along with his participation in the detention of foreign prisoners held in Iran and involvement in operations in Syria by the Revolutionary Guard’s counterintelligence department, the indictment noted.
He was again cited by the office in June 2023 for allegedly participating in the Revolutionary Guard’s lethal targeting operations.
Alinejad said she was headed to Ottawa, Canada, on Tuesday to speak at a conference about transnational repression.
After learning the news Tuesday, she posted a video on social media of herself riding a bicycle through New York City streets several weeks ago with a white flower attached to her hair, saying: “I love my life. Wahooooo!”
Still, she said, she eventually cried with the law enforcement authorities she met Tuesday morning because her protection, which has included moving 21 times over the past few years for her safety, reminds her of those left behind who lack her freedom.
“Sometimes I feel guilty because my people are not protected in my country. They get killed for the crime of showing their hair,” she said. “It makes me more determined to give voice to voiceless people.”