Iranian-born US woman sentenced over plot to kidnap Iranian dissident

An Iranian-born American woman has been sentenced to four years in prison for providing financial support to a plot to kidnap dissident Iranian-American activist Masih Alinejad and remove her to Iran, the US Justice Department says.

Niloufar Bahadorifar, 48, of Irvine, California, pleaded guilty in December to multiple charges, including conspiring to violate US sanctions by giving material support to Iran.

The Justice Department says Bahadorifar was sentenced by US District Judge Ronnie Abrams on Friday to four years in prison followed by three years of supervised release.

“Bahadorifar provided financial support to a brazen plot intended to kidnap an Iranian human rights activist living in the United States, whom the Iranian government has sought to silence for years,” US attorney Damian Williams says in a statement.

Bahadorifar was convicted of laundering money into the United States from Iran that was used to pay for private investigators to conduct surveillance of Alinejad on behalf of an alleged Iranian intelligence agent, Mahmoud Khazein.