NEW YORK — An Iranian opposition activist who U.S. authorities said was the target of two thwarted kidnapping or murder plots urged a federal judge in New York on Friday to hand a tough prison sentence to a woman who unwittingly funded one of the planned attacks.
Masih Alinejad, a onetime Iranian journalist, said her sense of safety has been shattered since authorities notified her in 2020 that she was being watched and that photographs were taken of her Brooklyn residence of 10 years. Since then, she has received U.S. government protection and has moved frequently between safe houses.
“This crime left its mark. Every day when I go out in the street, I have to look over my shoulders. … I miss my tree-lined street and my neighbors who treated me as one of their own,” Alinejad told Judge Ronnie Abrams as she asked her to set an example by sending 48-year-old Niloufar Bahadorifar, of Irvine, California, to prison for as long as possible.
Abrams did just that, announcing a four-year prison term after agreeing with prosecutors who urged her to impose a sentence between 46 and 57 months behind bars. She said she wanted to deter others who might aid the Iranian government in the targeting of individuals in the United States.
Abrams rejected a request by Bahadorifar’s lawyer, Jeffrey Lichtman, that his client be spared a prison term on the grounds that she, too, was a victim of a “dark, repressive, evil terror regime” that had left her so programmed to do as she was told that she fled Iran only to live for a time in Canada with a “fundamentalist, lunatic, abusive husband.”
Afterward, Bahadorifar addressed the court, telling Alinejad she was “humiliated to have been involved in any attempt to harm you, even if I was unaware of it.”
She added: “You are a hero to all Iranians. I am so sorry.”
Outside court, Alinejad was unimpressed.
“Even trying to use this to save herself? I’m not a hero,” she said. “My heroes are those people who…
Read the full article here
