A jury has found two men guilty on all counts of trying to kill Iranian dissident Masih Alinejad, who works as a journalist and lives in New York City.
Rafat Amirov and Polad Omaroy, both allegedly members of the Russian mob, will be sentenced in September and are facing decades behind bars. The charges against them included murder for hire, firearms possession, and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
“I am relieved that after nearly three years, the men who plotted to kill me have been found guilty. But make no mistake, the real masterminds of this crime are still in power in Iran. I am waiting for the day when Ali Khamenei and his terrorist Revolutionary Guards face justice, I want them to be punished,” Alinejad said outside court.
“Right now, I am bombarded with emotions. I have cried, I have laughed, I have even danced. Because today is not just about my survival; it is about the defeat and humiliation of a regime that believes it can silence its critics with bullets. They failed. I am still here. And I will keep fighting until every criminal in that regime faces their reckoning,” she added.
How the verdict came down
The jury got the case just before 1 p.m. on Thursday and later sent a note asking for testimony, but it was taking attorneys a while to gather materials. Before the jury even got the requested material, they sent another note saying they had reached a verdict.
Prosecutors told jurors during closing arguments the government of Iran put a $500,000 bounty on the head of Alinejad, who lives in Brooklyn, to silence her and that she has been the target of several plots by the Islamic Republic of Iran, including kidnapping.
The man who said he was hired to kill her was arrested in 2022 and testified during the trial.
Who is Masih Alinejad?
Alinejad said she left the Islamic Republic of Iran in 2009 after they took her passport and made her sign an agreement that she would not cover the election there. She moved to the U.S. and covered it from here.
Alinejad, who was a contributor for Voice of America, took the stand on Tuesday and was asked if the regime made accusations against her because of that contract.
She told the court, “I’ve been accused of being an agent of the CIA,” MI6 and President Trump, among other things.
In 2022, she was involved in two campaigns: boycotting Iranian sporting events, and a day of action calling on women in Iran to remove their hijab.
She told the court, “My social media is like my weapon.” She said her accounts were a place where she posted videos women sent her from Iran of themselves walking unveiled and getting harassed by the morality police.
That same year, prosecutors say there was a plot by Iran’s government to assassinate her.
The man who took a plea deal and testified for the government said he was in the Russian mob and was hired to kill Alinejad. He took pictures and videos inside her home and was arrested nearby for rolling past a stop sign. An AK-47 was in his backseat.
Alinejad described seeing him talking on a phone one day outside her home.
“I saw the big guy,” she said. “He was gigantic.”
