FinPol Digest

  On Tuesday, the US Department of Justice filed charges against Ruhollah Bazghandi, a senior Iranian official in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), for his alleged role in a 2022 assassination plot targeting Iranian American activist Masih Alinejad in New York. The charges, including murder-for-hire and money laundering, are a chilling reminder of the lengths authoritarian regimes are willing to go to silence critics abroad. Alinejad, a vocal critic of Iran’s mandatory hijab laws and the government’s treatment of women, was the focus of the assassination plot. US officials have revealed that the plot was orchestrated by Bazghandi, along with other Iranian officials, who allegedly contracted members of an Eastern European criminal network to kill Alinejad. The case took a serious turn in July 2022, when one of the suspects, Khalid Mehdiyev, was arrested outside Alinejad’s home in New York with a loaded rifle. This arrest led to further investigations that exposed Bazghan...

  The United States Justice Department recently charged a Pakistani man, Asif Merchant, with a chilling plot to carry out political assassinations. Allegedly connected to Iran, Merchant’s arrest has sparked significant concern and highlights the ongoing tensions between the US and Iran following the 2020 assassination of a senior Iranian military commander. The Plot Unveiled According to the Justice Department, Merchant traveled to New York in June, seeking to hire a hitman. The target? A politician or US government official, in retaliation for the killing of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) top commander, Qassem Soleimani, in 2020. This high-profile assassination had already strained US-Iran relations, and Merchant’s alleged plot underscores the continuing desire for retribution from certain factions within Iran. Arrest and Charges Merchant, who prosecutors allege had spent time in Iran before traveling from Pakistan to the US, was charged with murder for hire in f...