(CNN) Federal prosecutors in New York have charged a high-ranking official in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and three other people with connections to the Iranian government in an alleged plot to kill a New York-based journalist and human rights activist who is critical of the Iranian government.
The charges made public Tuesday against the official, Ruhollah Bazghandi, are the first to accuse an Iranian government official by name in the alleged plot to kill journalist Masih Alinejad.
In addition to the charges against Bazghandi and three others, three additional men who are allegedly part of an Eastern European criminal organization with ties to Iran were charged in the same murder-for-hire plot last year and are in custody. Prosecutors allege they were enlisted to carry out the assassination of Alinejad in the United States.
