President Trump says Iran is no longer killing protesters
President Donald Trump has insisted that Iran has stopped killing protesters and vowed to take strong action if executions resume.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Brooklyn man was sentenced to 15 years in prison on Wednesday, January 28, for what federal prosecutors say was his role in a failed Iran-backed murder-for-hire plot against prominent Iranian dissident Masih Alinejad living in the United States.
Carlyle Rivera, also known as “Pop,” previously pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire and one count of conspiracy to commit stalking before U.S. District Judge Louis Lehman of the Southern District of New York, who sentenced him Wednesday, the Justice Department announced. Alinejad, who defected from Iran in 2009, is a journalist who has long criticized Iran’s head covering laws.
She has promoted videos of women violating these laws to her millions of social media followers. She was living in Brooklyn at the time of the alleged plot against her life.
The case was part of the Justice Department’s transnational crackdown on the targeting of foreign political opponents by authoritarian governments. Prosecutors said Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards and its intelligence officials repeatedly tried to target Alinejad.
Iran dismissed as baseless claims that intelligence officials tried to kidnap or kill her. Other people in the United States have been convicted and sentenced in connection with the alleged conspiracy.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Edward Tobin)
