Federal prosecutors have charged four suspected Iranian intelligence officials with conspiring to kidnap a journalist, the US Justice Department said Tuesday.
The unnamed target was a human rights activist “critical of the Iranian regime’s autocracy,” said US Attorney Audrey Strauss for the Southern District of New York.
“Four of the defendants monitored and planned to … forcibly take their intended victim to Iran, where the victim’s fate would have been uncertain at best,” Strauss added.
The indictment against the four Iranians also alleges that the plot was part of a broader plan to lure three individuals in Canada, and another in the United Kingdom, to Iran. Individuals were also targeted in the United Arab Emirates, authorities confirmed.
“Every person in the United States must be free from harassment, threats and physical harm by foreign powers,” said the Justice Department’s National Security Division. “Through this indictment, we bring to light one such pernicious plot to harm an American citizen who was exercising their First Amendment rights, and we commit ourselves to bring the defendants to justice.”
jsi/rt (Reuters, AP, dpa)
Article source: https://www.dw.com/en/us-charges-4-iranians-with-plot-to-kidnap-journalist/a-58256974?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf