The United States government is determined to protect the rights of American citizens from the hostile reach of rogue regimes.
That determination was on display when officials from the Department of Justice recently announced charges against three individuals who plotted to murder a human rights activist and U.S. citizen of Iranian origin in New York City.
Although not named in the announcement or the indictment unsealed on January 27, Iranian American journalist and outspoken critic of the Iranian regime and its human rights abuses, Masih Alinejad, later identified herself as the target of the attempted assassination.
U.S. Justice Department officials charged three men belonging to an Eastern European crime group with ties to Iran, with money laundering and murder-for-hire. All three defendants, the would-be hitman Khalid Mehdiyev, of New York, as well as his co-conspirators Rafat Amirov, of Iran, and Polad Omarov, of the Czech Republic and Slovenia, are currently in custody.
At a press conference, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said, “Increasingly, we are seeing national security and criminal threats blend, as rogue nations and criminal organizations make common cause and share capabilities. From ransomware groups targeting critical infrastructure to facilitators of sanctions evasion, these criminal actors embolden our enemies and threaten our national security.”
This is not the first time that Masih Alinejad has been the target of a criminal plot. As Attorney General Merrick Garland noted, “In 2021, we charged an Iranian intelligence officer and three Iranian intelligence assets with plotting to kidnap the Victim from within the United States for rendition to Iran and likely execution, in order to silence the Victim.” Ms. Alinejad previously identified herself as the intended target of that earlier plot.
In a statement, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said the attempted assassination “follows a disturbing pattern of Iranian Government-sponsored efforts to kill, torture, and intimidate into silence activists for speaking out for fundamental rights and freedoms around the world.”
“We will not tolerate this belligerent and criminal conduct,” said Deputy Attorney General Monaco. “We will hold accountable those who seek to silence voices for human rights and women’s rights.”
The United States, declared Attorney General Garland, “will stop at nothing to identify, find, and bring to justice those who endanger the safety of the American people.”
