More than two years have passed since police stopped a man who was loitering outside the New York home of Iranian dissident and journalist Masih Alinejad. Inside his car, they found an assault rifle with an obliterated serial number, 66 rounds of ammunition and a ski mask.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran had allegedly sent him there to kill Alinejad, a staunch critic of Tehran.
On Monday, the men accused of directing the activity — Russian mobsters Rafat Amirov and Polad Omarov — are set to stand trial in Federal District Court in Manhattan.
They are charged with murder for hire and conspiracy in a case that experts say underscores how far the Iranian government will go to silence its critics — even those outside its borders.
“We will not tolerate attempts by a foreign power to threaten, silence or harm Americans,” Merrick Garland, the attorney general at the time, said in 2023 when federal officials first detailed the assassination plot against Alinejad.
Alinejad worked as a journalist in Iran before she was forced to leave the country in 2009. In exile, she now hosts a show with Voice of America’s Persian Service.
When contacted by phone on Monday, Alinejad told VOA she was unable to comment while the trial is ongoing.
The 2022 assassination attempt wasn’t the first time Alinejad was targeted.
In 2018, Iranian officials offered to pay Alinejad’s relatives in Iran to invite her to Turkey, with the apparent goal of ultimately bringing her to Iran for imprisonment, according to court documents. The relatives refused.
Then in 2021, Iranian operatives were accused of planning to kidnap her. An indictment described a plan to bring her from New York to Venezuela, which has close relations with Iran.
Since the kidnapping attempt, Alinejad has received U.S. government protection and moved frequently between safe houses.
Despite the threats, Alinejad has refused to stop her work.
“I don’t have any guns and bullets — I don’t carry weapons. But this government, they have everything, and they’re really scared of me,” Alinejad told VOA in 2023, referring to the Iranian government. “And that gives me power — that, wow, even with my words, even with my social media, I’m more powerful than them.”
The alleged plot to assassinate Alinejad emerged soon after the kidnapping plot failed, according to prosecutors. Prosecutors say the killing plot was initiated by a network in Iran led by Ruhollah Bazghandi, a brigadier general in the Revolutionary Guards.
Bazghandi and three other Iranian men who are not in Iranian custody have also been charged in New York with murder for hire.
“This is in the DNA of the Revolutionary Guards,” Alinejad told VOA in October 2024 when Bazghandi and the three others were indicted.
At the time, Alinejad also told VOA that it’s important for the U.S. government to hold Iran accountable for the plot and for Tehran’s broader use of transnational repression.
“This is about protecting democracy,” Alinejad said last year. “The Iranian regime is challenging the U.S. government on U.S. soil, and basically this is targeting freedom of speech, and the national security and safety of America.”
Iran’s Foreign Ministry did not immediately reply to VOA’s email requesting comment.
In the trial beginning Monday, prosecutors are planning to describe how Amirov and Omarov operated within a Russian criminal organization called the Thieves-in-Law, which originated in Stalinist prison camps.
A former member of the criminal group will testify for the government as a cooperating witness. That individual has been identified in court papers only as “CW-1,” but details of his actions correspond to some by Khalid Mehdiyev, the Azerbaijani man who was arrested outside Alinejad’s house with a gun in 2022.
Members of the Bazghandi network turned to Amirov, an Azerbaijani Russian citizen who was living in Iran at the time, according to an indictment. Amirov then contacted Omarov, who was living in Eastern Europe.
The duo then gave $30,000 to Mehdiyev, who purchased the assault rifle and staked out Alinejad’s house for about one week, according to an indictment. At one point, Mehdiyev sent a video of the assault rifle to Omarov, accompanied by the message, “We are ready.”
On the day of the attempted killing, Mehdiyev tried to open the front door to Alinejad’s house. The journalist managed to sneak away.
At that point, police officers were watching Mehdiyev because Alinejad had reported suspicious activity to the FBI. Mehdiyev drove away not long after trying to open Alinejad’s door. Police pulled him over after he ran a stop sign and arrested him when they realized his license was suspended and he was in possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number.
In jail, Mehdiyev used a contraband phone to notify the Thieves-in-Law that he had been arrested. One member of the criminal group sent Mehdiyev voice messages saying that he “went to kill the journalist,” but “they caught him,” prosecutors said.
The severe targeting of Alinejad underscores how Iran ranks among the worst perpetrators of transnational repression against journalists, according to Freedom House.
In 2022, Iranian operatives allegedly attempted to assassinate two Iranian journalists working at the Iran International TV network in London.
Like VOA’s Persian Service, Iran International is a source of independent news directed at populations in Iran.
Inside Iran, the government has long repressed independent journalists and other critics. The country ranks 176 out of 180 countries on the World Press Freedom Index, where 180 shows the worst media freedom environment.
