- Masih Alinejad is known for her criticism of the Iranian government and its treatment of women.
- US says Iran offered $500,000 to kill journalist
NEW YORK: A self-proclaimed member of a Russian organized crime group said Tuesday that he once tried to kill an Iranian-American journalist and activist, admitting while testifying in the U.S. trial of two of his co-conspirators.
Khalid Mekhtiyev, 27, told jurors he was arrested in July 2022 in his car in Brooklyn and found with an AK-47 assault rifle and a ski mask.
“I was there to try to kill a journalist,” Mekhtiyev said in Manhattan federal court.
Prosecutors allege that Mehdiyev was hired by accomplices Rafat Amirov and Polad Omarov to kill Masih Alinejad, a New York-based journalist who fled Iran in 2009 and was known for her outspoken criticism of the Tehran government and its treatment of women.
Amirov, 45, and Omarov, 40, have pleaded not guilty to murder for hire and attempted murder in furtherance of racketeering. They face decades in prison if convicted.
In his opening statement Tuesday, federal prosecutor Jacob Gutwillig said the Iranian government offered to pay Amirov and Omarov $500,000 to arrange Alinejad's murder.
“The defendants were mercenaries of the Iranian government,” Gutwillig said. “Masih Alinejad was nearly shot to death on the streets of New York by an assassin sent by the defendants.”
Amirov's lawyer, Michael Martin, countered that prosecutors relied on circumstantial evidence and “the testimony of a murderer and a liar.”
Omarov's lawyer, Michael Perkins, said the evidence did not support his client's intention to kill Alinejad.
A spokesman for Iran's UN mission did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
At his trial, Mehdiyev testified that he had masterminded murders, kidnappings and extortion during a criminal life that began a decade ago in his native Azerbaijan.
He also said he knew the target of the conspiracy at the heart of the case against Amirov and Omarov as “Masih.”
Mehdiyev said he was cooperating with prosecutors after pleading guilty to attempted murder and illegal possession of a firearm, and faces at least 15 years in prison for the attempt on Alinejad's life and separate racketeering charges.
Tehran has dismissed as “baseless” separate allegations that four Iranian intelligence officers tried to kidnap Alinejad in 2021.
