Official statements from U.S. or Iranian government, international news agencies

U.S. Charges IRGC General Ruhollah Bazghandi with 2022 Plot to Assassinate Activist Masih Alinejad in New York

Oct 22, 2024, 07:46 PM

Federal prosecutors in the United States have charged Ruhollah Bazghandi, a brigadier general and former intelligence officer in Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), and three other men connected to the Iranian government, with participating in a failed 2022 plot to assassinate Masih Alinejad, a Brooklyn-based Iranian-American journalist and human rights activist. The Department of Justice announced the murder-for-hire charges, which also include money laundering and sanctions evasion, against the IRGC officials and members of an Iranian intelligence network. The unsealed indictment from the Southern District of New York alleges that Bazghandi, through the IRGC Intelligence Organization (IRGC-IO), orchestrated the plot by contracting an Eastern European criminal organization to carry out the assassination in New York. This marks the first time a high-ranking Iranian official has been directly accused by the U.S. in such a scheme.