3 Charged Over Alleged Plot To Kill Exiled Iranian-American Creator In New York

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Division has charged three males in an alleged plot that originated in Iran to kill an Iranian American creator and activist who has spoken out towards human rights abuses there, officers mentioned Friday.

The lads, Rafat Amirov, 43, of Iran, Polad Omarov, 38, of the Czech Republic and Slovenia and Khalid Mehdiyev, 24, of Yonkers, New York, have been charged with cash laundering and murder-for-hire in an indictment unsealed in federal court docket in New York.

The three males have been in custody and one was awaiting extradition to the U.S.

Masih Alinejad, an Iranian opposition activist, journalist and author in exile in New York Metropolis, confirmed to The Related Press that she was the supposed goal.

“I’m not scared,” Alinejad informed the AP after U.S. authorities introduced the costs. “I need to let you know that the Iranian regime thinks by making an attempt to kill me, they are going to silence me, or silence different ladies. However they solely strengthen me, make me extra highly effective to battle for democracy and provides voice to courageous ladies who’re dealing with weapons and bullets within the streets to eliminate the Islamic Republic.”

She mentioned FBI officers had learn her the messages that the plotters exchanged between themselves, together with a ultimate one: “It’s going to be performed at this time.”

Iran’s mission to the United Nations didn’t instantly reply to a request for touch upon the costs. Iranian state media didn’t instantly acknowledge the alleged plot late Friday.

Whereas the person who allegedly orchestrated the plot lives in Iran, the indictment doesn’t straight accuse the nation’s theocracy of being behind the alleged murder-for-hire.

Nonetheless, the case “follows a disturbing sample of Iranian government-sponsored efforts to kill, torture, and intimidate into silence activists for talking out for the basic rights and freedoms of Iranians world wide,” White Home nationwide safety adviser Jake Sullivan mentioned.

Mehdiyev was arrested final yr after he was discovered driving round Masih’s Brooklyn neighborhood with a loaded “AK-47-style” rifle and dozens of rounds of ammunition. Alinejad informed The Related Press on the time that authorities informed her the person was on the lookout for her, and {that a} dwelling safety video had caught him skulking exterior her entrance door.

“The federal government of Iran has beforehand focused dissidents world wide, together with the sufferer, who oppose the regime’s violations of human rights,” Legal professional Normal Merrick Garland mentioned in saying the costs.

He mentioned “people in Iran” had tasked the defendants with finishing up the plot to kill the activist.

“The sufferer publicized the Iranian authorities’s human rights abuses, discriminatory therapy of ladies, suppression of democratic participation and expression and use of arbitrary imprisonment, torture and execution,” Garland mentioned. In 2019, “this exercise posed such a risk to the federal government of Iran that the chief decide of Iran’s Revolutionary courts warned that anybody who despatched movies to the sufferer criticizing the regime can be sentenced to jail.”

In 2021, an Iranian intelligence official and three others have been charged with plotting to kidnap the sufferer, he mentioned.

All three defendants are natives of Azerbaijan, which shares a border and cultural ties with Iran.

Amirov made his preliminary court docket look in New York and lawyer Michael Martin entered a not responsible plea on his behalf. The protection didn’t instantly ask for bail within the transient court docket look. Amirov used a Russian interpreter since he speaks it, although it isn’t his first language.

An lawyer for Mehdiyev declined to remark Friday. Omarov was arrested within the Czech Republic earlier this month. It was not instantly clear if he had an lawyer to talk on his behalf.

“This case additionally highlights the evolving risk and the more and more brazen conduct emanating from Iran,” mentioned Deputy Legal professional Normal Lisa Monaco. She additionally pointed to prices filed towards members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in an alleged plot to kill a former U.S. nationwide safety adviser, in addition to as prices towards Iranian hackers accused of concentrating on utility firms.

In recent times, Iranian intelligence and safety providers have stepped up using “transnational repression techniques” to focus on political opponents and critics, mentioned FBI Director Christopher Wray. Together with kidnapping and assassination plots, techniques have included surveillance, cyber operations and intimidation of household and pals in Iran, he mentioned.

“The Iranian authorities’s efforts to silence its critics aren’t confined to the borders of Iran,” Wray mentioned.

Tensions between america and Iran are even greater than normal, with the Biden administration’s makes an attempt to revive a 2015 deal limiting Iran’s nuclear program falling aside and the U.S. denouncing Iran’s concentrating on of protesters there. Iran is also accused of offering Russia with drones which might be enjoying a big function in Russian assaults on civilian targets in Ukraine.

Alinejad informed the AP she hoped that the ruthlessness of Iranians plotting to kill a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil would persuade President Joe Biden to behave on calls by some in Congress and elsewhere to put Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on the U.S. listing of terrorist entities.

“They’re really difficult the U.S. authorities to see what the consequence goes to be if there isn’t any punishment, and there’s no purpose for them to cease killing harmless Individuals or harmless Iranians,” she mentioned.

Alinejad, who labored for years as a journalist in Iran, lengthy has been focused by its theocracy after fleeing the nation following its disputed 2009 presidential election and crackdown.

She is a distinguished determine on Farsi-language satellite tv for pc channels overseas that critically view Iran, and she or he has labored as a contractor for U.S.-funded Voice of America’s Farsi-language community since 2015. She grew to become a U.S. citizen in October 2019.

Her “White Wednesday” and “My Stealthy Freedom” campaigns have seen ladies movie themselves with out head coverings, or hijabs, in public in Iran, which may convey arrests and fines. She additionally has been amplifying the voices of these protesting in Iran for the reason that September demise of Mahsa Amini, who died after being arrested by the morality police.

The three defendants, in the meantime, are members of an Japanese European felony group that has ties to Iran, in response to court docket papers.

Amirov, a pacesetter of the group dwelling in Iran, “was tasked” with concentrating on her by unnamed folks there, the indictment states. Garland declined to provide additional element on the place the orders originated. Amirov turned to Omarov, who lives in Japanese Europe, and so they introduced within the New York-based Mehdiyev, giving him $30,000 in money. Mehdiyev obtained the rifle and commenced watching her home in July, U.S. authorities mentioned.

He took photographs and video and thought up methods to attempt to lure her exterior for greater than per week, the indictment states. At one level, Mehdiyev described himself as being “on the crime scene.”

However on July 28, Alinejad left her dwelling after seeing one thing suspicious. When Mehdiyev tried to drive away shortly after, he was stopped by a New York police officer. Police discovered the gun, ammunition magazines, money and a black ski masks. He was arrested on a federal firearms cost.

Related Press writers Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Alanna Durkin Richer in Boston and Jennifer Peltz in New York Metropolis contributed to this report.