Two convicted in US of Iran-backed plot to kill journalist 

By Luc Cohen

NEW YORK - Two men who U.S. prosecutors say belong to a Russian organized crime group were convicted of involvement in an unsuccessful Iran-backed plot to kill a prominent New York-based dissident and journalist.

A jury in Manhattan federal court found Rafat Amirov, 46, and Polad Omarov, 40, guilty on Thursday of five charges including murder-for-hire over the planned assassination in 2022 of Masih Alinejad, a U.S.-Iranian and outspoken critic of Tehran and its treatment of women.

Elena Fast, a lawyer for Omarov, said she respected the jury's verdict but would appeal. Lawyers for Amirov did not respond to requests for comment.

The case was part of a crackdown by the Justice Department on what it calls transnational repression, the targeting by authoritarian governments of political opponents on foreign soil.

Prosecutors said Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard Corps paid Amirov and Omarov $500,000 for the botched hit on Alinejad. She fled Iran in 2009.

A representative of Tehran's mission to the United Nations did not respond to a request for comment. Iran has called allegations its intelligence officers sought to kidnap Alinejad baseless.

Jurors at the two-week trial heard testimony from Khalid Mehdiyev, a self-proclaimed mob associate of Amirov and Omarov who in July 2022 staked out Alinejad’s Brooklyn home.

He was arrested after running a stop sign, and police found an AK-47 rifle in his car.

“I was there to try to kill the journalist,” Mehdiyev testified. Mehdiyev, 27, cooperated with prosecutors after pleading guilty to attempted murder and illegal possession of a firearm.

Jurors also heard from Alinejad, who testified she saw a large man standing among flowers in her front yard in the summer of 2022, the same time Mehdiyev said he staked out her home.

"The guy was a little bit suspicious so I got panicked," Alinejad testified. "He was in the sunflowers, like, staring into my eyes."

Omarov and Amirov could face life in prison when they are sentenced by U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon on Sept. 17. 

(Reporting by Luc Cohen; Editing by Alistair Bell)