Four Iranian Agents Plan to Kidnap Journalist in New York, Says FBI | World | News | The sun

LThe four men had been seeking since “June 2020” to kidnap “an author and journalist who highlighted human rights violations committed by the Iranian government,” the US Department of Justice said in a statement.

They had planned “to take their victim by force to Iran, where (his) fate would have been at best uncertain,” said prosecutor Audrey Strauss.

The suspects “used the services of private investigators to monitor, photograph and film” the victim and his relatives, “on several occasions” between 2020 and 2021, according to the ministry.

The agents had been looking for a way to transport the journalist out of the United States, one of them inquiring in particular about speedboats offering “an autonomous marine evacuation” from New York, and a trip by boat between New York. and Venezuela, a country which maintains “friendly relations with Iran”.

Masih Alinejad is a feminist activist behind the anti-veiling movement in Iran, a country she has since left.

From the United States, where she has settled, she criticizes the Iranian regime and its policies, and has received the support of stars such as Meryl Streep, whom she joined on stage at a conference on human rights. women, in 2016.

“In the eyes of the Iranian regime, any woman who fights for her fundamental rights is a criminal,” she said last April in a video message to the Swedish Parliament.

Not being named in the press release, she seemed to confirm to be the target of this project, responding in particular “thank you” to a tweet referring to the charges announced.

Other victims targeted

This network, discovered by the FBI, also targeted other victims living in particular “in Canada, the United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates”, against whom they had tried to deploy the same means of surveillance, according to the prosecutors.

The four agents are Alireza Shavaroghi Farahani, Mahmoud Khazein, Kiya Sadeghi and Omid Noori.

A fifth Iranian residing in California, Niloufar Bahadorifar, is suspected of having participated in the financing of this project.

“Every person in the United States must be free from all harassment, threats and physical harm from foreign powers,” said prosecutor Mark Lesko.

Iran is considered one of the most repressive countries for journalists, and exercises “relentless” control of information according to the NGO Reporters Without Borders, which placed it in 174th place out of 180 in its ranking freedom of the press in 2021.

“This crackdown on freedom of information is not limited to the interior of the country”, affirms RSF, which estimates that since 1979, at least 860 journalists have been “arrested, detained or executed by the authorities” there.

In January 2016, Tehran traded Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian for seven Iranians detained in the United States.

Correspondent in Iran, Mr. Rezaian was arrested with his wife on July 22, 2014, when Iran had just accepted the relaunch of negotiations on its nuclear program, suspected by the international community of hiding a military component.

His wife was released after two months of detention. Accused of “espionage” for the benefit of the United States, he had spent 544 days in Evin prison, in northern Tehran, where he claimed to have been ill-treated, deprived of sleep and threatened with death. be beheaded.

Iran holds more than a dozen Westerners – also holders of Iranian passports for the most part – in prison or under house arrest, like the Franco-Iranian researcher of Sciences Po Fariba Adelkhah, imprisoned for two years.

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