{"id":3539,"date":"2026-01-29T13:49:54","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T13:49:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.deffi.org\/en\/?p=3539"},"modified":"2026-01-29T13:50:16","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T13:50:16","slug":"man-sentenced-to-15-years-for-role-in-plot-to-kill-iranian-dissident","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.deffi.org\/en\/man-sentenced-to-15-years-for-role-in-plot-to-kill-iranian-dissident\/","title":{"rendered":"Man Sentenced to 15 Years for Role in Plot to Kill Iranian Dissident"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Carlisle Rivera, the operative involved in the conspiracy to assassinate Masih Alinejad, the Iranian-American journalist, has been sentenced to 15 years in prison.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/01\/28\/nyregion\/iranian-dissident-murder-plot-sentencing.html\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/01\/28\/nyregion\/iranian-dissident-murder-plot-sentencing.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">New York Times<\/a>, citing the U.S. Department of Justice, reported that Carlisle Rivera was convicted of participating in a \u201cmurder-for-hire\u201d scheme targeting Masih Alinejad, an Iranian-American journalist and critic of the Iranian government. The U.S. judicial authorities have attributed the orchestration of this assassination plot to Iran\u2019s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). In 2024, the IRGC\u2014through an intermediary\u2014offered Rivera $100,000 to carry out the murder of this outspoken opponent of the Iranian regime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is not the first time that Iranian journalists and dissidents living in exile have faced threats, assassination attempts, or physical attacks outside Iran. Numerous cases have been documented in which Iranian reporters and activists have been targeted by threats, stabbing attacks, or elaborate murder plots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.deffi.org\/en\/2025-annual-report-the-islamic-republics-military-posture-against-the-free-flow-of-information-in-iran\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.deffi.org\/en\/2025-annual-report-the-islamic-republics-military-posture-against-the-free-flow-of-information-in-iran\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">annual report by the DeFFI organization<\/a>, Iranian journalists and media outlets are currently enduring an unprecedented wave of security pressures, judicial prosecutions, and deliberate interference in their professional activities. The organization has described this situation as a \u201cmilitarized campaign against the free flow of information.\u201d In 2025, transnational threats by the Islamic Republic against Iranian journalists abroad reached an all-time high, taking on deeply alarming dimensions. During this period, multiple instances of arrests, threats, harassment, and targeted restrictions against the families of Iranian journalists living overseas were recorded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Carlisle Rivera, the operative involved in the conspiracy to assassinate Masih Alinejad, the Iranian-American journalist, has been sentenced to 15 years in prison. The New York Times, citing the U.S. Department of Justice, reported that Carlisle Rivera was convicted of participating in a \u201cmurder-for-hire\u201d scheme targeting Masih Alinejad, an Iranian-American journalist and critic of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3540,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,25],"tags":[358,441],"class_list":{"0":"post-3539","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"category-repression-of-journalists","9":"tag-female-journalists","10":"tag-masih-alinejad"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deffi.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deffi.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deffi.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deffi.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deffi.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3539"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.deffi.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3539\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3541,"href":"https:\/\/www.deffi.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3539\/revisions\/3541"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deffi.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deffi.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deffi.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deffi.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}