January 17, 2025
The United States has filed charges of murder against a captain in the Pasdaran, accusing him of organizing the 2022 shooting of an American English teacher in Baghdad in retribution for the US assassination of Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleymani 10 months earlier.
There was no suggestion that the targeted American, Stephen Troell, 45, had any role in the Soleymani assassination. He didn’t work for the US government, but for a school in Baghdad. The documents filed with the charges in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York (Manhattan) do not suggest any link to the Soleymani assassination.
They say Iran believed Troell to be an American or Israeli spy, but do not say why Iran believed that. The man charged is Mohammad-Reza Nouri, 36, a captain in the Pasdaran assigned to Baghdad. At one point, he is described as telling his Iraqi recruits that Troell was seeking to convert Iraqi Muslims to Judaism while spreading Judaism across Iraq, though elsewhere he is quoted as saying Troell planned to establish “thousands” of Christian churches in Iraq.
There is nothing in the charging documents to suggest what evidence led Nouri and his superior, an unnamed colonel in the Pasdaran, to focus on Troell for retribution as a foreign spy. It is possible he was simply chosen because, as an American private citizen, he had none of the protection accorded to official Americans.
Nouri and four Iraqis have already been tried and convicted in Iraq of Troell’s murder. Nouri was given a life sentence and is currently in an Iraqi prison. That is the longest sentence he could be given in the United States if convicted of the charges against him.
The charges against Nouri were filed with the court August 1, but only released by the Justice Department December 20. The Justice Department did not say if it was seeking to extradite Nouri from Iraq for trial in the United States. Nouri is not accused of being the triggerman.
He is charged with organizing the plot and of hiring the triggerman. Nouri had surveilled Troell and knew his routine. On November 7, 2022, two cars that Nouri had bought went to Troell’s home when they knew he was coming home with his wife from the school where he worked.
One car drove into one end of the alley where Troell parked his car and blocked the alley. When Troell drove into the other end of the alley, the second car came in behind him and blocked that end of the alley. Surveillance cameras showed two men got out of each car and went to the driver’s side of Troell’s car.
One man raised a rifle (not a handgun) and shot Troell as he sat next to his wife. The wife was not attacked. Then the four men returned to their cars and drove off. It was all over within 20 seconds.
That night Nouri left for Iran, where he arranged accommodations for the nine Iraqis who carried out the killing and followed him to Iran. Later Nouri returned to Baghdad, where he was arrested in March 2023.
The murder followed the standard practice of the Islamic Republic of using foreigners, usually Shiites, as the actual triggermen in murders to try to avoid links to the Islamic Republic if they are captured. Troell, his wife and their three daughters had been living in Baghdad for two years while he taught at the Global English Institute, a private school that has been operating in Baghdad since 2004.