US Attorney General Merrick Garland announced today, Friday, the arrest of three people on suspicion of involvement in what he described as a "Tehran-backed plot" to assassinate dissident Iranian journalist Masih Alinejad in the United States.
Garland said that two of the three arrested are members of a mafia operating in Eastern Europe and linked to Iran, noting that they were recruited to prepare for the assassination of Ali Nejad in New York.
Ali Nejad is an Iranian journalist and feminist activist, and she participated in publishing tweets supporting the demonstrators in Iran, following the death of the young Iranian woman, Mahsa Amini, after her arrest by the morality police last September.
There was no immediate comment from the Iranian authorities on the US Attorney General's accusations.