The four suspects are a person in the Iranian intelligence service and three people who worked under his command, according to one of them statement From the US Department of Justice.
US-based journalist Masih Alinejad, who comes from Iran, appears to have been the target of the plans. She is a vocal critic of the Tehran government and is the founder of My Stealthy Freedom, which encourages women to remove their headscarves.
Ali Nejad is still She was active as a journalist in Iran, but said in interviews that her press card was withdrawn after investigations into corruption and misconduct within the regime. She was repeatedly threatened with arrest and eventually fled the country in 2009, but remained a nail in the eyes of the regime.
It is not indicated by name in the press release, but is in a column in it Washington Post She confirmed that she was subjected to an Iranian campaign on social media to kidnap her.
In the column, she describes: “Photoshopped photos showed me meeting interrogators wearing headscarves and handcuffs,” and continues:
“It was a horrific experience, but I can’t say it was totally unexpected. In many ways the regime has tried to intimidate me and force me into silence over the years.”
According to the ministry The four people, all living in Iran, intended to lure her to travel to a third country with the help of the victim’s relatives, where she would be arrested and taken to Iran. The victim’s home and customs in the Brooklyn neighborhood are said to have been monitored by private investigators, and a video camera has also been installed in her home. It is said that the surveillance was carried out with the help of money laundering from Iran, and a fifth person living in California was arrested, on suspicion of being involved in financing the alleged kidnapping plan.
The FBI must have tracked down the plans.
“This indictment alleges that the Iranian government instructed a number of government agencies to plot to kidnap a journalist based in the United States who is an American citizen, and to carry out surveillance on American soil — all with the intent to deceive. Our citizen returned to Iran in retaliation for the fact that he used his freedom of expression,” President Alan E Kohler Jr. of the FBI in a press release.
alternative plan The journalist must have been flown by motorboat from New York, then onto a ship bound for Venezuela.
“This is not the plot of a long-awaited movie,” William Sweeney Jr. of the New York FBI office said in a statement. New York times.
According to the US Department of Justice, the Iranians also designated the other people they wanted to kidnap in Canada, Britain and the United Arab Emirates.
Iran denies all allegations, describing it as “baseless absurdity.”
“This is not the first time that the United States invents such stories in Hollywood,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh told the official Iranian news agency.
“Falls down a lot. Internet fanatic. Proud analyst. Creator. Wannabe music lover. Introvert. Tv aficionado.”
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