Treasury Sanctions Iranian Intelligence Network Targeting Iranian-American Activist in the US
The United States Department of the Treasury has sanctioned
four Iranian intelligence officials it alleges targeted an Iranian-American
journalist and human rights activist living in the US and Iranian dissidents in
other countries in an effort to silence critics of the Iranian government.
The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control said in a
press statement on Friday that senior Iran-based intelligence official Alireza
Shahvaroghi Farahani led a group of Iranian intelligence officers in a plot to
kidnap a US-based reporter.
Though not mentioned by name in the Treasury’s statement or
on its website, the journalist and activist is presumably Masih Alinejad, a
reporter who has contributed to the US government-funded Voice of America
Persian language service and reports on human rights issues in Iran and whose
case involving the Iranian intelligence officers has made international news.
“The Iranian government’s kidnapping plot is another example
of its continued attempt to silence critical voices, wherever they may be,”
Director of the Office of Foreign Assets Control Andrea M Gacki said in the
statement.
“Targeting dissidents abroad demonstrates that the
government’s repression extends far beyond Iran’s borders,” she added.
The failed plot to allegedly kidnap the journalist led to
the group’s indictment at the US District Court for the Southern District of
New York in late July. The group of four stands accused of conspiracy related
to kidnapping, sanctions violations, bank and wire fraud, and money laundering.
The team allegedly planned the abduction of the journalist,
who lives in New York City, the Treasury Department said on Friday, claiming
that the group allegedly hired a private investigator to spy on the victim and
laundered money from Iran to the US to pay for the surveillance.
Sadeghi allegedly “researched options to abduct the victim
via military-style speedboats out of New York City for transport to Venezuela,”
according to the Treasury Department.
Farahani is also accused of leading Mahmoud Khazein, Kiya
Sadeghi and Omid Noori in a plot to target Iranian dissidents in the US, the
United Kingdom, Canada, and the United Arab Emirates.
Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) engages
in domestic repression, the Treasury also said, stressing that targeting
dissidents, journalists and opposition leaders undermines international peace
and security.
MOIS was previously designated by the US as being
responsible for, or complicit in, the commission of serious human rights abuses
against Iranian people, the department said.
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