logo
Trial Set for Men Accused of Targeting Iranian Dissident in New York

Trial Set for Men Accused of Targeting Iranian Dissident in New York

New York Times10-03-2025

First, the Iranian government was accused of trying to lure a journalist and dissident from New York City to Turkey to abduct and imprison her. Then, according to U.S. officials, intelligence agents schemed unsuccessfully to kidnap the woman, Masih Alinejad.
In 2022 came the most audacious attempt to silence Ms. Alinejad, who was born in Iran and has long criticized its government. Prosecutors said figures connected to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran sent members of the Russian mob to kill her.
The plot, authorities say, was thwarted when police officers stopped an Azerbaijani man who had lurked outside Ms. Alinejad's Brooklyn home and tried to open her door. In his sport utility vehicle, they found an assault rifle with an obliterated serial number, 66 rounds of ammunition and a ski mask.
The men accused of directing the activity in Brooklyn, Rafat Amirov and Polad Omarov, are to stand trial in Federal District Court in Manhattan on Monday, charged with murder for hire and conspiracy. The trial is expected to illustrate the lengths to which Iranian officials will go to retaliate against expatriates, even those living in Western countries, who speak up against the government in Tehran.
'We will not tolerate attempts by a foreign power to threaten, silence or harm Americans,' Merrick B. Garland, the attorney general at the time, said in 2023 when federal officials first detailed the plot against Ms. Alinejad.
Prosecutors are planning to describe how Mr. Amirov and Mr. Omarov operated within a rivalrous, faction-ridden criminal organization known as the Thieves-in-Law, which originated in Stalinist prison camps.
Some insight might come from a former member of the group who prosecutors said participated in the plot against Ms. Alinejad, but will testify for the government as a cooperating witness.
That person has been identified in court papers only as 'CW-1,' but details of his actions match some of those ascribed to Khalid Mehdiyev, the Azerbaijani man who was arrested outside Ms. Alinejad's house. An indictment that charged Mr. Amirov, Mr. Omarov and several others who remain at large did not list Mr. Mehdiyev, who lived in Yonkers, N.Y., at the time of his arrest, as a defendant.
The cooperating witness will testify about statements by Mr. Amirov while both were in a federal jail in Brooklyn following the failed attempt on Ms. Alinejad's life, prosecutors wrote, including one that the contract for killing her was worth $500,000. Prosecutors also wrote that they would present 'substantial electronic communications' documenting the murder plot that were found in Mr. Omarov's cloud accounts and devices.
Before trying to kill Ms. Alinejad, prosecutors wrote, Mr. Omarov and Mr. Mehdiyev had participated in several kidnapping and murder plots overseas, aiming to enrich themselves and to strengthen their standing within the Russian mob.
The two had been involved in extorting an ethnic Azeri grocery store owner in Brooklyn in 2022, prosecutors said, when Mr. Omarov told Mr. Mehdiyev he had a better assignment — killing Ms. Alinejad — that could lead to additional lucrative jobs.
Ms. Alinejad had worked in Iran as a journalist but wrote in The New York Times that she was forced to leave the country in 2009. Since then, Ms. Alinejad, who hosts a program called 'Tablet' on Voice of America Persian, a U.S. government-owned broadcaster, has been a sharp critic of the Iranian government. She is known for starting a campaign in 2014 against compulsory hijab laws in Iran and inviting women to wear white scarves in protest.
In 2018, according to court papers, Iranian officials offered to pay Ms. Alinejad's relatives in Iran to invite her to Turkey, with the apparent goal of bringing her to Iran for imprisonment. The relatives refused and the next year one was sentenced to eight years in prison, court papers said, based on purported support for Ms. Alinejad's advocacy.
Two years later, Iranian operatives, including an intelligence official named Alireza Shavaroghi Farahani, were accused of conspiring to kidnap Ms. Alinejad. Prosecutors said that the plotters had used a live, high-definition video feed of her home. An indictment described a plan that included the potential use of speedboats to spirit Ms. Alinejad away from New York City, followed by an ocean voyage to Venezuela, whose leadership has friendly relations with the Iranian government.
The idea to kill Ms. Alinejad in Brooklyn originated soon after the kidnapping plot fell apart, according to prosecutors, and was initiated by a network in Iran led by Ruhollah Bazghandi, a brigadier general in the Revolutionary Guards. He and three other Iranian men who are not in U.S. custody have been charged in Manhattan with murder for hire.
Members of the Bazghandi network turned to Mr. Amirov, a citizen of Azerbaijan and Russia who was then living in Iran, an indictment said, and he in turn contacted Mr. Omarov, a Georgian living in Eastern Europe. They provided $30,000 to Mr. Mehdiyev, according to an indictment, and he bought the assault rifle and began staking out Ms. Alinejad's home.
His surveillance lasted about a week, an indictment said, with Mr. Mehdiyev telling Mr. Omarov at one point that he was 'at the crime scene.' The two men exchanged ideas about how to draw Ms. Alinejad to her door, the indictment said, and Mr. Mehdiyev sent a video showing the assault rifle to Mr. Omarov, along with the message: 'We are ready.'
On that day, it seems, Ms. Alinejad was more prepared than the man sent to kill her.
According to an affidavit by an F.B.I. agent, Mr. Mehdiyev lingered outside Ms. Alinejad's home for hours, at one point ordering food to be delivered to his vehicle, and tried to open Ms. Alinejad's front door. She slipped from the premises, apparently without encountering Mr. Mehdiyev. He drove away about 15 minutes later and was observed by police officers who had arrived after Ms. Alinejad reported suspicious activity to the F.B.I.
While being watched, Mr. Mehdiyev drove through a stop sign, the agent wrote. That infraction provided a reason for the police to pull him over and discover that his driver's license was suspended. Mr. Mehdiyev was arrested and a search of his vehicle turned up the rifle. Soon after that, he was charged with possessing a firearm with an obliterated serial number.
In jail in Brooklyn, Mr. Mehdiyev used a contraband phone to let the Thieves-in-Law know that he had been arrested. Word that he was in custody prompted a flurry of communications among the group's members, prosecutors said.
One member sent Mr. Omarov several voice messages saying that Mr. Mehdiyev 'went to kill the journalist' but 'they caught him,' according to prosecutors. Days later. Mr. Omarov was said to have written to Mr. Amirov about Mr. Mehdiyev, saying: 'I hope he will not make trouble for me.'

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

NATO secretary general: Russia may attack NATO within five years
NATO secretary general: Russia may attack NATO within five years

Yahoo

time33 minutes ago

  • Yahoo

NATO secretary general: Russia may attack NATO within five years

Russia is building up its military capabilities and will be ready to use military force against NATO states within five years. Source: European Pravda; NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte during a speech at Chatham House in London on 9 June Quote: "Russia could be ready to use military force against NATO within five years. Russia has teamed up with China, North Korea and Iran. They are expanding their militaries and their capabilities. Putin's war machine is speeding up, not slowing down. Russia is reconstituting its forces with Chinese technology and producing more weapons faster than we thought," Rutte explained. The NATO secretary general said that Russia produces as many munitions in three months as all NATO countries produce in a year. "And its defence industrial base is expected to roll out 1,500 tanks, 3,000 armoured vehicles and 200 Iskander missiles this year alone. Let's not kid ourselves. We are all on the eastern flank now. The new generation of Russian missiles travel at many times the speed of sound. The distance between European capitals is only a matter of minutes. There is no longer east or west. There is just NATO," Rutte said. Background: Andrius Kubilius, European Commissioner for Defence and Space, shared the assessment of Western intelligence that a Russian attack on EU states could occur within the next few years. The German Federal Intelligence Service believes that Russia sees itself in a systemic conflict with the West and is preparing for a major war with NATO. Support Ukrainska Pravda on Patreon!

Russia sentences 2 Azov fighters to over 20 years in prison
Russia sentences 2 Azov fighters to over 20 years in prison

Yahoo

time33 minutes ago

  • Yahoo

Russia sentences 2 Azov fighters to over 20 years in prison

A Russian court has sentenced two Ukrainian soldiers of the Azov Brigade to more than 20 years in prison for allegedly killing civilians in the city of Mariupol in Ukraine's Donetsk Oblast, Russia's Investigative Committee announced on June 9 on Telegram. Russia has held a number of sham trials with Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs) over the past years, focusing in particular on Azov fighters captured during the war. Azov has been demonized by Russian propaganda for years. Russian authorities accuse sniper Ruslan Orlov and paramedic Artem Novikov of shooting three civilians in Mariupol in April 2022. The Russian court sentenced Orlov to 26 years in a strict regime colony, and Novikov to 24 years. Ukraine has not yet commented on the Russian Investigative Committee's statement. Russia's months-long siege of Mariupol between February and May 2022 reduced the port city to a landscape of rubble and killed thousands. In the meantime, the Azovstal Steel Plant in Mariupol became a symbol of Ukrainian resistance at the onset of the all-out war, as Ukrainian soldiers valiantly defended the plant under the Russian siege. On May 16, 2022, Azovstal defenders were ordered to surrender to the encircling Russian forces after nearly two months of constant bombardment of the besieged plant. The evacuation from Azovstal ended on May 20, 2022, with Ukrainian soldiers transferred to a penal colony in Russian-occupied Olenivka, Donetsk Oblast, now infamous as the site of the mass killing of Azov fighters. On July 28, an explosion killed 54 Ukrainian prisoners of war and injured over 150 at the Olenivka penal colony. Many of them were members of Azov. While hundreds of Azov fighters have been released since 2022, hundreds more remain in captivity. Read also: War's unseen isolation: A Ukrainian officer's story of survival and hope We've been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.

US imposes sanctions on Los Chapitos, a faction of the Sinaloa Cartel
US imposes sanctions on Los Chapitos, a faction of the Sinaloa Cartel

Yahoo

time33 minutes ago

  • Yahoo

US imposes sanctions on Los Chapitos, a faction of the Sinaloa Cartel

By Daphne Psaledakis WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The United States on Monday imposed sanctions on Los Chapitos, a faction of the Sinaloa Cartel, labeling it a Specially Designated Global Terrorist as President Donald Trump's administration seeks to tackle cross-border drug trafficking. The U.S. Treasury Department in a statement said it designated Los Chapitos under illicit drug and terrorism authorities, accusing it of facilitating trafficking and production of fentanyl, the lethally potent opioid. Two of its fugitive leaders, both sons of convicted Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, were also hit with sanctions, according to the Treasury Department. "Los Chapitos is a powerful, hyperviolent faction of the Sinaloa Cartel at the forefront of fentanyl trafficking into the United States," Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in the statement. "At the Department of the Treasury, we are executing on President Trump's mandate to completely eliminate drug cartels and take on violent leaders like 'El Chapo's' children. Treasury is maximizing all available tools to stop the fentanyl crisis and help save lives." The Treasury on Monday also imposed sanctions on what it said was a regional network of Los Chapitos associates and businesses based in Mexico. Monday's action freezes any of their U.S. assets and generally bars Americans from dealing with them. Those that engage in certain transactions with the sanctioned parties also risk being hit with sanctions. The move comes after the Trump administration in February designated Tren de Aragua, the Sinaloa Cartel and other drug cartels as global terrorist organizations. Trump, a Republican, issued an executive order after taking office on January 20 that called on officials to evaluate whether any criminal cartels or transnational gangs should be designated as terrorism groups. The U.S. terrorism designations have come alongside a government crackdown on migration, with thousands of foreigners being deported to third countries in Latin America.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store