Image Credit: @stephentroell / X
The Tennessee Conservative Staff –
An alleged Iranian terrorist is facing charges in the 2022 murder of a Knoxville man who was working abroad.
According to court documents unsealed on Friday, 36-year-old Mohammad Reza Nouri is accused of maintaining an extensive file on 12 American nationals, one of whom was 45-year-old Stephen Troell.
Troell, who was from Knoxville, had lived in Baghdad, Iraq, for fifteen years with his family, teaching at an English-language institute through Temple Baptist Church. Prosecutors say Nouri believed Troell was either an American or Israeli intelligence officer.
The documents state that Nouri – also known by the aliases Muhammed Rida Husayn, Ali Asghar Nuri, and Abu Abbas – is an officer in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a group designated by the U.S. government as a terrorist organization in 2019.
It is alleged that he gathered information about Troell’s daily schedule, personal information, and family in order to formulate a murder plot against Troell as retaliation for the U.S. killing of then-commander of the IRGC, Qasim Soleimani during a drone strike.
According to prosecutors, Troell and his wife were stopped by an armed group on November 7, 2022. They approached Troell, who was in the driver’s seat of his vehicle, and shot him with an assault weapon.
Nouri then assisted with making sure the armed group escaped safely before celebrating Troell’s death with them. He then fled back to Iran.
Nouri is currently being detained in Iraq after his arrest in March 2023. An Iraqi court convicted him for his part in Troell’s murder, and he is now facing charges in the U.S. as well for assisting a terrorist organization and killing a U.S. national. He could be sentenced to life in prison or even death if he is convicted.
U.S. Representative Tim Burchett says it is time for the U.S. to “evaluate our role over there and start bringing these people home.”
Senator Marsha Blackburn also acknowledged the need for harsher retaliation against terrorism.
“Iran is the largest state sponsor of terror. We should be applying maximum sanctions on Tehran to send them the message we will not tolerate terrorism,” Blackburn said.
