In a significant legal decision on Wednesday, two individuals received 25-year prison sentences for plotting to assassinate Iranian-American journalist Masih Alinejad.
Judge Colleen McMahon handed down the 300-month sentences to Rafat Amirov and Polad Omarov. The pair faced convictions on charges of murder for hire, conspiracy to commit murder for hire, money laundering, and firearm possession and use related to their assassination attempt.
Following the sentencing, Alinejad addressed the public outside the Manhattan courthouse. She expressed that her advocacy for Iranian women was her only “crime,” and lamented how her life was reduced to a mere transaction. Despite the ordeal, she affirmed her resilience and urged the judge to demonstrate the U.S.’s solidarity with Iranian women.
Alinejad’s husband also made a statement, describing the defendants’ actions as driven by “pure malice.”
Masih Alinejad was seen embracing friends and supporters outside the federal courthouse after providing testimony at the trial in New York on March 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
The convictions stemmed from a plot orchestrated in May, where the men accepted $500,000 from the Iranian government to hire a hitman targeting Alinejad at her Brooklyn residence in July 2022. The scheme was thwarted when authorities apprehended the would-be assassin, Khalid Mehdiyev, armed outside her home.
Mehdiyev is being tried in a separate case, and he testified against Amirov and Omarov in their trials. He testified that Amirov offered him $30,000 to kill “the journalist” as he referred to Alinejad during testimony.
Masih Alinejad fled from Iran to the U.S. in 2009. (Fox News Photo/Joshua Comins)
Mehdiyev pleaded guilty to attempted murder and gun charges in his case. He faces up to 15 years in prison.
U.S. officials say Alinejad has survived multiple attempts on her life since fleeing Iran in 2009, according to the New York Post.
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