Federal prosecutors have charged four Iranian intelligence operatives with plotting to kidnap a Brooklyn author and human rights activist.
The four — Alireza Shavaroghi Farahani, Mahmoud Khazein, Kiya Sadeghi and Omid Noori, all living in Iran — are accused of conspiring to kidnap a Brooklyn journalist, author and human rights activist who has been critical of the Iranian regime.
A fifth, Niloufar Bahadorifar, is accused of providing financial support.
The author was not named in court documents, but Masih Alinejad told NBC News that she was the target.
“I’ve been targeted for a number of years but this is the first time that such an audacious plot has been hatched and foiled,” she said by email Tuesday night.
In 2020, Alinejad wrote in The Washington Post that she learned of the Iranian regime’s intention to kidnap her. “It’s been a horrifying experience, but I can’t say that it’s been entirely unexpected. The regime has tried many forms of intimidation to silence me over the years,” she wrote.
Prosecutors say the Iranian government directed followers to kidnap the author to get her back to Iran.
Farahani is an Iranian intelligence official who lives in Iran, and Khazein, Sadeghi and Noori are Iranian intelligence assets who work for him, the Justice Department said.
The charging documents say the men hired private investigators, by misrepresenting who they were and what they wanted, to surveil the author in Brooklyn during 2020 and 2021.
Prosecutors said Farahni’s intelligence network also researched how to get the author out of New York. One of the four researched a service offering “military-style speedboats for self-operated maritime evacuation out of New York City, and maritime travel from New York to Venezuela, a country whose de facto government has friendly relations with Iran,” the Justice Department said.
Phil Helsel contributed.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
