By Pishtaz | 2024-11-01

The United States has charged an Iranian intelligence network, whose members include a former intelligence officer of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), with murder-for hire, money laundering and sanctions evasion.

The US Justice Department on October 22 announced it was unsealing a superseding indictment against eight Iranian nationals for their attempts to assassinate a prominent critic of the Iranian regime on US soil.

The target of the plot was not named, but she has been widely identified as Iranian-American journalist, author and human rights activist Masih Alinejad.

"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,” said US Attorney General Merrick Garland.

The indictment "exposes the full extent of Iran's plot to silence an American journalist for criticizing the Iranian regime," said FBI director Christopher Wray.

A former Iranian intelligence officer, working with a network of conspirators, planned to kill a dissident living in New York, according to the charges.

"The FBI's investigation led to the disruption of this plot as one of the conspirators was allegedly on their way to murder the victim in New York."

The Iranian regime was behind a long, "violent campaign to stalk, intimidate, and arrange the killing," on US soil, of a dissident "for bravely speaking up for the rights of the Iranian people,” said Justice Department official Matthew Olsen.

Iran-based co-conspirators

In January 2023, charges were unsealed in a US court alleging that members of an Eastern European crime group engaged in a plot to murder this victim.

Three members of that group are in US custody, and a fourth was extradited from the Czech Republic to the Republic of Georgia to face charges there.

"As we allege, 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 IRGC, directed the murder plot."

The four Iran-based co-conspirators remain at large.

Network kingpin Ruhollah Bazghandi, who is already under sanctions, has previously served as chief of an IRGC Intelligence Organization counterintelligence office.

Since at least July 2022, the Bazghandi network tasked members of the Eastern European crime group with assassinating the victim, who was previously the target of a kidnapping plot that was disrupted and exposed by the FBI.

The Iranian regime has a long history of targeting Iranian dissidents living abroad. It has killed some 360 individuals outside the country since 1978, with assassinations taking place in 40 countries, per the US State Department.