WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department has charged three men in a plot to kill an Iranian American author and activist who has spoken out against human rights abuses in Iran, officials said Friday.

The men, Rafat Amirov, 43, of Iran, Polad Omarov, 38, of the Czech Republic and Slovenia and Khalid Mehdiyev, 24, of Yonkers, New York, were charged with money laundering and murder-for-hire in a superseding indictment unsealed in federal court in New York.

It is the second time in two years that federal officials have disrupted a plot aimed at the unnamed victim in New York City.