Two men have been convicted of rent for rent as part of a plot of the Iranian government to silence a critic in the United States, federal tax prosecutors said on Friday.
His goal was Masih Alinejad, a statement from the office of the United States prosecutor. Alinejad is a journalist affiliated with Voice of America, a means of communication funded by the US government whose director has described it as promoting freedom and democracy worldwide by providing objective information.
Rafat Amirov, 46; And Polad Omarov, 40, was convicted of a Federal Grand Jury in New York City of five positions on Thursday, said the United States prosecutor’s office in a statement.
The accusation includes charges of rent for rent; conspiracy to commit contract murder; conspiracy to commit money laundering; Attempted murder in the aid of organized crime; And carrying a gun for an attempt to murder, the office said.
Alinejad, who has criticized Iran’s treatment to women and with his human rights history, responded to the verdict on Thursday in a statement: “For the first time, the regime of the Islamic Republic is responsible for bringing its horror campaign to the American soil.”
She added: “They failed. I’m still here.”
Amirov’s lawyers did not immediately respond to a comment request on Friday. Omarov’s lawyer, Elena Fast, said by email: “We respect the jury’s verdict, but we plan to present an appeal on behalf of Mr. Omarov.”
Federal prosecutors said that high -ranking members of the Revolutionary Guard took advantage of the couple, described in the accusation as superiors in the Russian mafia of New York City, to find and kill Align for $ 500,000.
The assignment, prosecutors said, occurred a year after a failed attempt on behalf of the Iran government of Iran to kidnap the journalist in 2021. The defendants subcontracted the last allocation to another member of their crime group, Khalid Mehdiyev, who lived about 25 miles north of the city of New York, in Yonkers, the prosecutors said.
Iran has denied the accusation of 2021, describing it as “without foundation.”
Mehdiyev, identified in the accusation as “a co-conspirator not appointed as accused here,” he testified that the defendants hired him to kill Align and previously declared himself guilty of minor charges when cooperating with the Prosecutor’s Office.
The couple sent him $ 30,000, according to the accusation. Mehdviyev bought a Norinco AK-47 replica for work, he said.
On July 28, 2022, after Mehdviyev told his superiors that he was ready to squeeze the trigger, he was arrested at a traffic stop near Brooklyn’s house in Align, where the police said he found the gun, the accusation said. There is also: 66 rounds of ammunition and $ 1,100 in cash, both in suitcase in the vehicle, he said.
Mehdviyev was under the surveillance of the FBI, according to an affidavit of 2022 in support of arresting it and accusing it for allegedly having a firearm without a serial number, a federal crime.
According to the affidavit, the agents saw Mehdviyev go to the porch of Align the day before his arrest. In a publication on social networks, Align shared a security video showing a man on his porch that said “he tried to open the main door.”
“The defendants participated in a shameless plot to kill an Iranian dissident in New York who criticized the regime in Iran,” said the interim counterintelligence director of the FBI, Roman Rozhavsky, in the Friday statement of the United States lawyer’s office. “The FBI will not tolerate Iran’s attempts to threaten, silence or harm US citizens.”
The Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, welcomed the convictions on Friday, writing in X: “Yesterday’s judicial decision shows that the attempts of Iran of lethal conspiracy against Americans such as @alinejadmasih will meet Swift Justice & Charshedability.”
Alinejad arrived in the United States after he was banished from Iran following his coverage of corrupt politicians and the result of his 2009 national elections.
After she arrived, she launched a social networks campaign encouraging women in the country to publish photos of themselves in public without their children required by the government.
Amirov and Omarov face the possibility of life imprisonment in the sentence, which is scheduled for September 27, according to the office of the United States prosecutor.
Last week, President Donald Trump ordered Voice of America to reduce operations to the minimum under the law.
