The would-be assassin of Iranian dissident Masih Alinejad will be sentenced in Manhattan.

Iranian opponent Masih Alinejad he survived three plots of land in Iran kill him or kidnap him. He will face one of the men involved in the murder-for-hire case when he is sentenced in federal court in Manhattan on Wednesday.

“Now I’m going to face a murderer, who would be my murderer,” said Alinejad, a critic of Iran’s oppression of women. “But the biggest killer in my eyes is the IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps).”

This is the second time that Alinejad has faced a man accused of plotting to kill her in the past year. The two men, who prosecutors say were members of a Russian group employed by Iran, received 25 years in prison in October. trying to kill Alinejad in her Brooklyn home.

“The IRGC, the Revolutionary Guards, is behind the murder plans. The same IRGC that is ordering the killing of many people right now in Iran,” he said. “I have been attacked by Iranians who found videos showing the IRGC using AK-47 military weapons to kill people. The same IRGC gave the killers here money to buy AK-47s to end my life.”

Prosecutors said Farhad Shakeri, who works in Iran, “was commissioned by the government to direct a criminal network to carry out plans to kill Iran against its targets.”

Prosecutors allege that in the latest attempt, Shakeri ordered two of his New York crime partners, Carlisle Rivera and Jonathan Loadholt, to kill Alinejad.

That effort was to take place in February 2024 at Fairfield University in Connecticut, where Alinejad had a speaking engagement.

After months of surveillance, their plot failed. Rivera and Loadholt were arrested in November 2024 and pleaded guilty before trial.

Rivera, who will be sentenced on Wednesday, faces up to ten years in prison on charges of conspiracy to commit murder for hire. Loadholt’s sentencing is scheduled for April 23. Shakeri is believed to be in Iran.

Federal authorities said Shakeri told them he had been commissioned by the IRGC to plan to assassinate President Trump before the 2024 election.

When he heard that the same man planned to kill him and Mr. Trump, Alinejad “laughed a lot” and told her husband: “Wow, they think I’m as strong as President Trump. I’m just a 48 kilo (105 pound) woman. I don’t have soldiers, I don’t have weapons, soldiers, nothing. Just my voice. My weapon is my voice.”

At the same time, Alinejad said that she feels afraid, remembering that for many years the Iranian regime says that America is “the great Satan” and “the great enemy of Iran.”

“The same group that targeted President Trump, wanted to target me,” he said. “It means that now in their eyes I am the great Satan. I am their great enemy.”

Alinejad is a journalist and leader of the movement to liberate Iranian women from the compulsory hijab. He fled Iran in 2009 and settled in the United States.

He alleges that Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ordered her execution, pointing to a speech in which he referred to an “American agent” who had compared the compulsory hijab to the Berlin wall. Alinejad has made that exact comparison.

Alinejad said that the day before she was to speak at Fairfield University, the FBI came to her home to warn her of an imminent threat. Agents take him to a safe house. The university canceled the event.

“I want to confront him and say, did you really want to shoot at the university? How many innocent students could you kill?” he said of Rivera’s sentence.

Alinejad sees her mission as exposing the situation in Iran and giving victims a voice, but she worries that her life’s efforts will create fear of inviting her to speak.

“By sending killers to America, they are not only targeting me. They are targeting freedom of speech in America,” he said. “They are trying to cover up their massacre.”

“I am very grateful to America for bringing my would-be murderers to justice,” added Alinejad. “But I want the great sponsor of terrorism, Ali Khamenei, who ordered my murder​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ and now ordered the massacre in Iran, to answer to the United States of America.”

– Masih Alinejad is a CBS news anchor