The Iranian government “wanted desperately” to kidnap and kill dissident journalist Masih Alinejad on the streets of New York City for shining a light on the regime’s torturous oppression of women, a Manhattan jury heard in opening statements Tuesday in the murder-for-hire case against two Eastern European gangsters.
“They smeared her in state-run news media. They imprisoned her brother. They even attempted to kidnap her and bring her back to Iran. And when they failed, when they couldn’t silence her or intimidate her or kidnap her, they hired these men,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Jacob Harris Gutwillig said in Manhattan federal court, looking over at Rafat Amirov and Polad Omarov.
“The government of Iran wanted desperately Masih Alinejad murdered, and you will hear why.”
Rafat Amirov, left, and Polad Omarov. Amirov and Omarov are members of the “Thieves in Law” enterprise, one of Russia’s oldest organized crime gangs that originated in Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin’s gulags.
The men Gutwillig called “guns for the government of Iran” have pleaded not guilty to murder-for-hire, conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire, attempted murder in aid of racketeering, and possession and use of a firearm in the case alleging they participated in a plot to kill Alinejad, who contributes to Voice of America and other outlets, at her Flatbush, Brooklyn home in July 2022 at the behest of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran.
Their trial is expected to shine a light on the far-reaching tentacles of the Iranian regime.
The journalist, author, and human rights activist, a prolific critic of Iran’s discriminatory treatment of women and human rights abuses, fled the country for the U.S. in 2009 and has since survived numerous attempts on her life. She became a U.S. citizen in 2019.
In 2021, an Iranian intelligence official and four accomplices were indicted for spying on her for months and hatching a plan to kidnap her and transport her to the East River, where they planned to ferry her by boat to Venezuela, according to court records.
The regime didn’t give up, Gutwillig said Tuesday, noting it was Alinejad’s encouragement to Iranian women to share pictures and videos on social media refusing to abide by the mandate to wear hijabs in public that particularly “enraged” the Iranian regime.
“Masih Alinejad is one of their main targets — that is because she stood up to the government of Iran by taking aim at one of its core rules, and that core rule is forcing a woman to cover her head … If women in Iran do not comply, they may be arrested or beaten by the morality police,” he said.
“She shined a light on the government’s oppression of women, (and) that enraged the regime.”
In the case on trial, Gutwillig said evidence including a tranche of electronic communications would show Amirov and Omarov accepted $500,000 from the Iranian government to plan Alinejad’s killing, which included stalking and preparing to murder her.
The feds allege that after a member of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard enlisted Amirov for help executing the hit, he hired Omarov via Iran. Omarov, who was in Eastern Europe, recruited Yonkers-based Khalid Mehdiyev of Azerbaijan, who was wired $30,000 to secure an AK-47 and surveil Alinejad round-the-clock during a seven-day stakeout outside her home — tracking where and when she bought coffee and what time she watered her flowers.
Mehdiyev, indicted alongside Amirov and Omarov in January 2023, is cooperating with the feds, Gutwillig said Tuesday. He was outside Alinejad’s home on the cusp of carrying out the killing on July 28, 2022, when she sensed something was off and fled the area. He was pulled over by the NYPD after running a stop sign 15 minutes later and found to have an AK-47 assault rifle, 66 rounds of ammunition, $1,100 in cash, and a black ski mask.
In the defense’s opening statement Tuesday, lawyers for Amirov and Omarov said they had no intent of killing Alinehad and that the evidence against them was wholly circumstantial. They framed Mehdiyev’s cooperation as an attempt to save himself.
“The evidence will show Mr. Mehdiyev knew he was in serious trouble within hours of his arrest,” lawyer Michael Martin said, adding that the trail of electronic evidence held up by the feds had no “fingerprints” belonging to his client. He called the cooperator a “murderer, a kidnapper, an arsonist, a robber, an extortionist, a scammer, a fraudster and a liar.”
Attorney Michael Perkins said Omarov, “in simple terms,” was a scam artist who sought only to screw the Iranian regime out of payment to carry out the hit.
“Mr. Omarov did little more than forward some WhatsApp messages,” Perkins said, adding the evidence would show he never intended to kill the journalist. “Mr. Omarov had no intention — no agreement — with anyone to kill Ms. Alinejad.”