Status: 07/14/2021 4:19 a.m.
The US judiciary has indicted four Iranian intelligence officers. You are accused of trying to kidnap a US human rights activist. A person living in the United States is also accused.
New York prosecutors have charged four Iranian intelligence officials or informants with the planned kidnapping of a US human rights activist. They wanted to kidnap the American woman of Iranian origin, who lives in Brooklyn, and abduct her to Iran, where she was threatened with prosecution as a critic of the Iranian regime, the Justice Department said.
The four suspects are in Iran, it said. A fifth person who lives in California is alleged to have helped fund the venture. The Federal Police FBI thwarted the plan in time, it said.
Author and activist apparently the goal
It is the right of US citizens to make use of freedom of expression and to stand up for human rights – without having to fear foreign intelligence services, said the prosecutor. The Justice Department did not name the person who was about to be abducted.
According to media reports, it was the author and activist Masih Alinejad. She also circulated several reports and comments through her verified Twitter account identifying her as the target of the planned kidnapping. In a tweet she later blamed the Iranian leadership under outgoing President Hassan Ruhani for this and for the kidnapping of other regime critics.