How a Russian Mobster Stalked an Iranian Dissident in Brooklyn

New York Times

14-03-2025

Khalid Mehdiyev returned a phone call in the summer of 2022 from a fellow member of the Russian mob, Polad Omarov. They had been collaborating on a project, Mr. Mehdiyev said, extorting a grocery store owner in Brooklyn.
Now, Mr. Omarov said, he had been offered a bigger job by some people he knew.
'They want the journalist die,' Mr. Mehdiyev said Mr. Omarov told him. 'They want to give that job to us.'
Over several days in a Manhattan murder-for-hire trial, Mr. Mehdiyev, an Azerbaijani member of a Russian crime syndicate, gave a detailed description of how Mr. Omarov had directed him in a failed plot to murder Masih Alinejad, an Iranian-born journalist and dissident living in Brooklyn.
Mr. Mehdiyev, 27, a bearded, burly man who wore dark-green prison garb in court, spoke in a flat voice with occasionally mixed-up grammar or pronunciation as he delivered his account of the realities of transnational repression — fancy words for the blunt threat of violence.
He described coercing business owners for a group of mobsters called the Thieves-in-Law while living in Yonkers, N.Y. A restaurant was burned and a Range Rover was filled with bullet holes. Meetings with enforcers named Man Man and Sonny took place in a Bronx pizzeria where a woman behind the counter would help Mr. Mehdiyev pick up money from the mob.
Mr. Omarov and a second mobster, Rafat Amirov, both accused of murder for hire and conspiracy, have been on trial in Federal District Court since Monday. Mr. Mehdiyev, who was arrested in 2022 near Ms. Alinejad's home with an AK-47-style assault rifle, had faced the same charges. But he took the stand as a government witness, saying he had pleaded guilty to several offenses including attempted murder and possession of an illegal firearm.
During an opening statement, a prosecutor said Mr. Mehdiyev was Mr. Omarov's 'trusted lieutenant.' That prosecutor also told jurors that they would hear 'directly from the hit man' — Mr. Mehdiyev — who would provide 'a terrifying inside view' of preparations to kill Ms. Alinejad.
A lawyer for Mr. Amirov also previewed Mr. Mehdiyev's testimony, but in different terms. That lawyer, Michael W. Martin, said his client was being framed by Mr. Mehdiyev and cautioned jurors not to take as gospel 'the testimony of a murderer and liar.'
Mr. Mehdiyev acknowledged under cross-examination that he had submitted forged documents to U.S. authorities to get into the country, then defrauded the Small Business Administration and deposited fake checks with Wells Fargo and Bank of America. With Man Man, he stole $8,000 from a woman on Long Island. He also tried to rob a man in Manhattan who was wearing a large chain and attempted to extort a sum of money he said he could not remember from a housemate.
From the United States, he had ordered two murders overseas and told his chosen killer, a man named Fikrat, to commit those crimes while on the phone with him.
Mr. Mehdiyev said he joined the Russian mob at 16 or 17. Men in Azerbaijan brought him in, Mr. Mehdiyev testified, telling him 'if you living the street life, you better live by the rules.' Those forbade him from helping any government and required unswerving allegiance to a 'vor,' or mob leader. In Mr. Mehdiyev's case, that was a man known as Guli who ruled his gang from prison.
After sending 20 people to beat and stab a rival, Mr. Mehdiyev fled Azerbaijan. He was still a teenager when he decided to move to the United States.
'We don't have people out there,' Mr. Mehdiyev said Guli told him, adding that he wanted him to 'do crimes for my name.'
Prosecutors have said that the idea to kill Ms. Alinejad, who left Iran in 2009 and has been a persistent critic of the Tehran government, originated in a network of Iranian men who have been charged in Manhattan but are not in U.S. custody. Members of that network, led by Ruhollah Bazghandi, a brigadier general in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, contacted Mr. Amirov, according to an indictment. He, in turn, contacted Mr. Omarov, prosecutors said, who delegated the job to his Azerbaijani lieutenant in Yonkers.
Mr. Mehdiyev testified that Mr. Omarov told him the murder of Ms. Alinejad would bring in $160,000 and that people within the government of Azerbaijan had arranged it.
'Azerbaijan government wants to do gift to the Iran government' Mr. Mehdiyev said.
The Azerbaijani Embassy in Washington, D.C., did not reply to email messages asking for comment on Mr. Mehdiyev's testimony.
Within days, Mr. Mehdiyev said, he received $30,000 that Mr. Omarov had sent via a man in Brooklyn. He added that he brought the woman from the pizzeria with him to get the plastic bag full of cash, because Mr. Omarov had told him 'don't show your face.'
He paid $2,000 to someone in the Bronx for the assault rifle.
Mr. Mehdiyev said he wanted someone else to carry out the murder under his supervision, but Mr. Omarov said he was ultimately responsible: 'Put one more bullet on journalist head.'
He tried to keep his hands clean, Mr. Mehdiyev testified, but couldn't find anyone to do what mobsters call the wet work. Man Man, the enforcer, said Ms. Alinejad was too well known to kill without attracting attention. He proposed they burn down her house instead.
For about a week, Mr. Mehdiyev testified, he staked out Ms. Alinejad's home, communicating several times a day with Mr. Omarov.
He found Ms. Alinejad's phone number on her Instagram page and sent her messages through WhatsApp and Telegram, which were introduced as evidence. One said 'u the best journalist.' Another asked Ms. Alinejad for help with asylum papers.
'I was trying to have a conversation with her so I can get into her life,' Mr. Mehdiyev explained. 'I was trying to get the easy way to kill her.'
There was at least one missed chance.
Mr. Mehdiyev testified that he saw Ms. Alinejad sitting on her porch as he strolled by. 'By the time I was walking back to my car to go get the gun, she wasn't there.'
Finally, near the end of July, he walked onto the porch. Security camera footage from the home showed him dressed in a black T-shirt and shorts. A video that was shown to jurors captured one of his hands extended toward the knob of her door. He did not get in.
Within minutes, Mr. Mehdiyev testified, he was back in his car and driving away, eager to evade what he believed to be undercover police officers.
The police were indeed in the area. Officers pulled over Mr. Mehdiyev when he drove through a stop sign and arrested him when they learned that his license was suspended. In the car they found the assault rifle and a black ski mask.
He meant to use the rifle to shoot Ms. Alinejad, he told a prosecutor in court, and the mask would be used to 'cover my face when I was going to kill journalist.'