Three criminals directed by Iran to assassinate a U.S. journalist critical of the regime were charged Friday in the murder-for-hire scheme, the Justice Department announced.
The three were part of an Eastern European criminal organization paid by the Iranian government to kill exiled journalist Masih Alinejad, who now lives in New York. The regime has made multiple attempts to kidnap or kill her within America. Alinejad was the target of a 2021 kidnapping plot that led to the indictment of four Iranian-connected people.
“The Islamic Revolutionary Guards have been conducting these terrorist operations for four decades. Islamic Republic is ISIS with oil,” Alinejad tweeted Friday.
The incident marks the latest example of violence from the Islamic regime, which has brutally cracked down on protesters who took to the streets in late 2022 to criticize the country’s leaders. The Biden administration has been slow to respond, even as an Iranian military leader recently called for the destruction of the United States and Israel.
One of the three listed in Friday’s indictment, Khalid Mediyev, was captured in July in Alinejad’s neighborhood in Brooklyn while allegedly attempting to carry out the assassination. Police found an AK-47-style weapon in his car with ammunition. The other two suspects are Rafat Amirov, who was arrested Thursday in New York, and Polad Omarov, who was arrested earlier this month in the Czech Republic.
Alinejad also posted a video Friday saying, “Let me make it clear; I’m not scared for my life.”
In the DOJ press release FBI assistant director Michael J. Driscoll said the three were “tasked” with carrying out the “coldblooded murder of an American citizen.”
“This plot was an attempt to silence a voice critical of Iranian authoritarianism and human rights atrocities,” Driscoll said.
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