Two men have been convicted in a murder-for-hire scheme targeting Iranian-American journalist Masih Alinejad at her Brooklyn home. A federal jury in New York found Rafat Amirov and Polad Omarov guilty of plotting to assassinate Ms. Alinejad in July 2022, following a two-week trial. Prosecutors revealed that Iran’s government funded the plot, targeting Ms. Alinejad for her activism against Iran’s mandatory headscarf laws. The two men, described by prosecutors as Russian mobsters, were convicted on charges including murder for hire, firearms possession, and conspiracy to commit money laundering, and now face decades in prison. The jury reached its verdict after just over three hours of deliberation.
This case is part of a broader pattern of alleged Iranian efforts to silence Ms. Alinejad, including a failed 2021 kidnap plot that led to the arrest of four Iranian intelligence officials. When those attempts failed, a $500,000 bounty was reportedly placed on her life. Ms. Alinejad, who left Iran in 2009 and worked for Voice of America, expressed a mix of emotions after the verdict, stating, “I have cried, I have laughed, I have even danced. 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.” She vowed to continue her fight for justice, declaring, “I am still here. And I will keep fighting until every criminal in that regime faces their reckoning.” Iran’s government has denied the allegations, calling them “ridiculous and baseless.”
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