WASHINGTON — The U.S. According to officials, the Justice Department has charged three men in an alleged plot to kill an Iranian American author and activist who has spoken out against human rights violations in Iran.
Rafat Amirov, 43, of Iran, Polad Omarov, 38, of the Czech Republic and Slovenia, and Khalid Mehdiyev, 24, of Yonkers, New York, were charged in an unsealed indictment in federal court in New York with money laundering and murder-for-hire. The three men were detained, and one was awaiting extradition to the United States.
Masih Alinejad, a New York-based Iranian opposition activist, journalist, and writer, confirmed that she was the intended target.
“I’m not scared,” Alinejad said after U.S. authorities announced the charges. “I want to tell you that the Iranian regime believes that by attempting to kill me, they will silence other women or me. But they only serve to strengthen me, to make me more powerful in my fight for democracy and to give a voice to the brave women who are fighting the Islamic Republic with guns and bullets in the streets.”
She claimed FBI agents read her the messages the plotters exchanged, including a final one that said, “It’s going to be done today.”
Iran Media Did Not Acknowledge The Plot
Iran’s U.N. mission did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the charges. Late Friday, Iranian state media did not immediately acknowledge the alleged plot.
While the alleged plotlines in Iran, the indictment does not directly blame the country’s theocracy for the alleged murder-for-hire.
Nonetheless, the case “follows a disturbing pattern of Iranian government-sponsored efforts to kill, torture, and intimidate activists into silence for speaking out for the rights and freedoms of Iranians around the world,” according to White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan.
Mehdiyev was caught last year while driving around Masih’s Brooklyn neighborhood with a loaded “AK-47-style” rifle and a lot of bullets. At the time, Alinejad told The Associated Press that authorities had told her that the man was looking for her and that a home security video had captured him skulking outside her front door.
Attorney General Merrick Garland said when he announced the charges, “The Iranian government has previously gone after dissidents around the world, including the victim, who are against the regime’s violations of human rights.”
Victim Had Kidnapping Plots Against Her
He claimed that “individuals in Iran” tasked the defendants with carrying out the assassination plot.
“The victim made public the Iranian government’s human rights violations, discrimination against women, suppression of democratic participation and expression, and use of arbitrary imprisonment, torture, and execution,” Garland said. “This activity posed such a threat to the Iranian government in 2019 that the chief judge of Iran’s Revolutionary courts warned that anyone who sent videos criticizing the regime to the victim would be sentenced to prison,” according to the report.
He claimed that in 2021, an Iranian intelligence official and three others were charged with plotting to kidnap the victim.
All three defendants are Azerbaijanis, a country with a border and cultural ties to Iran.
Amirov appeared in court for the first time in New York, and his attorney, Michael Martin, entered a not-guilty plea on his behalf. During the brief court appearance, the defense did not immediately request bail. Amirov used a Russian interpreter because he speaks it, although it is not his first language.
Evolving Threat And Brazen Behavior
Mehdiyev’s attorney declined to comment on Friday. Omarov was arrested earlier this month in the Czech Republic. It was unclear whether he had an attorney speaking on his behalf.
“This case also highlights Iran’s evolving threat and increasingly brazen behavior,” said Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco. She also mentioned charges filed against members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in connection with an alleged plot to assassinate a former U.S. national security adviser and charges filed against Iranian hackers accused of targeting utility companies.
FBI Director Christopher Wray says that Iranian intelligence and security services have been using more “transnational repression tactics” in recent years to go after political opponents and critics. He said that tactics in Iran include surveillance, cyber operations, intimidation of family and friends, and kidnapping and assassination plots.
“The Iranian government’s efforts to silence its critics are not limited to Iranian borders,” Wray said.
Tensions between the U.S. and Iran are higher than usual, with the Biden administration’s efforts to resurrect a 2015 deal limiting Iran’s nuclear program failing and the U.S. condemning Iran’s targeting of protesters in Iran. Iran is also said to have given Russia drones that Russia has used to attack civilian targets in Ukraine.
Calls For Congress To Do Something
Alinejad said that she hoped the ruthlessness of Iranians plotting to kill a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil would persuade President Joe Biden to act on calls from some in Congress and elsewhere to list Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization.
“They are challenging U.S. authorities to see what the consequences will be if no punishment is imposed, and there is no reason for them to stop killing innocent Americans or innocent Iranians,” she said.
Alinejad was a journalist in Iran for many years. Since he left the country after the disputed presidential election and crackdown in 2009, Iran’s theocracy has been after him.
She is a prominent figure on Farsi-language satellite channels abroad that criticize Iran, and she has worked as a contractor for the Voice of America’s Farsi-language network, which the United States funds, since 2015. She became a citizen of the United States in October 2019.
Three Defendants Are Members Of An Eastern European Criminal Organization
Her “White Wednesday” and “My Stealthy Freedom” campaigns have seen women film themselves in public in Iran without head coverings or hijabs, which can result in arrests and fines. She has also made the voices of Iranian protesters louder since the death of Mahsa Amini in September. Amini died after being arrested by the morality police and was later found dead.
According to court documents, the three defendants are members of an Eastern European criminal organization with ties to Iran.
According to the indictment, Amirov, a group leader living in Iran, was “tasked” with targeting her by unnamed people. Garland declined to elaborate on where the orders came from. Amirov turned to Omarov, who lives in Eastern Europe, and together they brought Mehdiyev, who lives in New York, and paid him $30,000 in cash. US authorities say that Mehdiyev got the gun and started watching her house in July.
For more than a week, he took photos and videos and devised ways to entice her outside, according to the indictment. Mehdiyev described himself as being “at the crime scene” at one point.
Alinejad, on the other hand, left her house on July 28 after noticing something suspicious. When Mehdiyev attempted to leave, he was stopped by a New York police officer. The gun, ammunition magazines, cash, and a black ski mask were discovered by police. He was taken into custody on a federal firearms charge.
SOURCE – (AP)
