DOJ announces indictment in murder plot to assassinate U.S. Citizen by Iran

(Washington, DC) -- The Department of Justice is charging three men in an alleged plot to assassinate a U.S. citizen who has publicly criticized the Iranian government.

Attorney General Merrick Garland said members of an Eastern European crime organization with ties to Iran were hired to kill the victim who has long been a critic of Iran's human rights abuses in Brooklyn, New York.

The victim, who is a journalist and activist of Iranian origin, has been a target of the regime for speaking out against its treatment of women and use of arbitrary imprisonment and execution.

Garland said the defendants will all stand trial in the U.S.