World
US charges IRGC official, others in Iran-backed plot to assassinate journalist
Prosecutors have said that the defendants had plotted to lure Alinejad out of her house by asking her for flowers from her garden then gun her down.
The United States issued fresh charges over the attempted Tehran plot to kidnap and assassinate an Iranian-American journalist in New York, indicting an Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) official among others in the case, according to a court document on Tuesday.
U.S. prosecutors have previously charged other suspects in the case, including one man in 2022 and two more in January 2023. Tuesday’s filing did not name the alleged victim, but one of the previously charged suspects in the case was arrested for having a rifle outside the Brooklyn home of journalist and activist Masih Alinejad, Reuters reported.
“Today’s indictment exposes the full extent of Iran’s plot to silence an American journalist for criticizing the Iranian regime,” said U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Christopher Wray
The IRGC official, Ruhollah Bazghandi, was a brigadier general who previously served as chief of the corps’ counterintelligence department, according to an indictment unsealed in federal court in Brooklyn.
Bazghandi was previously sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department. Prosecutors said that Bazghandi’s internet activity, as well as that of three other individuals whose names were unsealed on Tuesday, pointed to their involvement in multiple assassination plots, read the report.
Bazghandi and the other newly charged defendants are based in Iran and remain at large, prosecutors said. The man arrested outside Alinejad’s home, Khalid Mehdiyev, and another man allegedly involved in the plot, Rafat Amirov, are in U.S. custody and have pleaded not guilty to murder-for-hire charges.
Prosecutors have said that the defendants had plotted to lure Alinejad out of her house by asking her for flowers from her garden then gun her down.
World
Fire at Saudi factory kills 16 Bangladeshi migrant workers
A major fire at a sofa manufacturing factory in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, killed 16 Bangladeshi migrant workers, officials in Dhaka said on Monday.
The fire broke out on Sunday in the Musa Sanaiya industrial area, Reuters reported.
Bangladesh’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs is monitoring the situation, while officials from the Bangladesh Embassy in Riyadh are working with Saudi authorities to complete the repatriation formalities.
Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment Minister Ariful Haque Choudhury has instructed officials to bring back the bodies as soon as possible and ensure necessary government assistance and compensation for the bereaved families.
With around 3.5 million Bangladeshis living in Saudi Arabia, the country remains the largest destination for Bangladeshi migrant workers, who sent home more than $2.7 billion in remittances last year.
World
Israel rejects Trump’s 15-point plan for Gaza, PM Netanyahu says
Israel has rejected U.S. President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace 15-point plan for Gaza, and will not withdraw until Hamas fully disarms, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday, Reuters reported.
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