US charges 4 Iranians with plot to kidnap journalist

The suspected members of Iranian intelligence allegedly planned to "forcibly take" a US journalist and human rights activist from New York to Iran.

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.

All of the potential victims were critical of Iran.

"Every person in the United States must be free from harassment, threats and physical harm by foreign powers," said Acting US Assistant Attorney General Mark J. Lesko. "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."

The state of US-Iran relations

Relations between the US and Iran have been strained since all formal diplomacy ended between the two countries in 1980, in the wake of the revolution in the Islamic Republic the year before.

But those relations deteriorated further during the Donald Trump presidency.

A 2015 deal aimed at curbing Iran's nuclear capabilities in return for an easing of sanctions has been looking increasingly vulnerable since the Trump administration withdrew from it in 2018.