NEW YORK (AP) — A foiled assassination attempt targeting Iranian American journalist Masih Alinejad at her Brooklyn residence came perilously close to fruition, according to prosecutors addressing a judge about the case involving two alleged Russian mobsters.
As sentencing approaches for Rafat Amirov, 46, and Polad Omarov, 41, prosecutors are advocating for 55-year prison terms for these individuals in the Manhattan federal court. It is alleged that Amirov, hailing from Iran, and Omarov, from Georgia, hold significant positions within the Russian mafia.
Defense attorneys for Amirov argue that a sentence exceeding 13 years would be excessive, while Omarov’s legal team is requesting a prison term of just 10 years.
The convictions stemmed from a dramatic two-week trial in March, which included gripping accounts from a hired hitman and testimonies from Alinejad herself, an author, activist, and contributor to Voice of America.
In a message to her supporters on Tuesday, Alinejad voiced her intention to be present in court. She plans to confront the men accused of being senior members of the Gulici, a notorious faction of the Russian Mob notorious for orchestrating a series of violent crimes, including murders, assaults, extortions, kidnappings, robberies, and arson, both domestically and internationally.
“They’ll receive their sentence, and I’ll speak my truth in my impact statement,” Alinejad affirmed, expressing her resolve to address the court.
Alinejad, 49, led online campaigns encouraging women in Iran to record videos of themselves exposing their hair to protest edicts for head coverings in public.
Prosecutors said Iranian intelligence officials first plotted in 2020 and 2021 to kidnap Alinejad in the U.S. and move her to Iran to silence her criticism.
Iran offered $500,000 in a July 2022 attempt to kill Alinejad after efforts to harass, smear and intimidate her failed, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors said in court documents that Alinejad was targeted by the Iranian government after she “dedicated her life to exposing the cruelty, corruption, and tyranny of the Islamic Republic.”
When Alinejad, Amirov and Omarov were offered the $500,000 bounty, they “appeared completely incurious about who they were plotting to murder and why,” prosecutors wrote.
“Amirov and Omarov were interested in one thing only: their own power and wealth,” they said.
Prosecutors said the plot “came chillingly near success,” interrupted only by the luck that Alinejad was out of town while a hired gunman tried persistently to locate her and because of the “diligence and tenacity of American law enforcement, which detected and disrupted the plot in time.”
Lawyers for Amirov said in court documents ahead of sentencing that no one was physically hurt and their client’s involvement in the plot was “minimal, if not non-existent.”
Lawyers for Omarov said he deserved leniency because his life had been threatened after a relative who was a reputed leader of the “thieves-in-law” criminal organization in Russia and Azerbaijan was killed in 2020. Omarov was extradited to the U.S. in February 2024, a year after he was detained in the Czech Republic.
Alinejad testified at the March trial that she came to the United States in 2009 after she was banned from covering Iran’s disputed presidential election and the newspaper where she worked was shut down.
Establishing herself in New York City, she built an online audience of millions and launched her “My Stealthy Freedom” campaign to encourage Iranian women to expose their hair when the morality police were not around.
Prosecutors have kept the investigation open. In October 2024, they announced charges against a senior Iranian military official and three others, none of whom are in custody.
Alinejad said she has moved nearly two dozen times since the assassination plot was discovered.
