The two Russian mobsters convicted in an international assassination plot targeting the Iranian American dissident Masih Alinejad were sentenced to 25 years in prison in a New York courtroom on Wednesday.
Rafat Amirov and Polad Omarov were found guilty in Manhattan federal court this March of charges including murder-for-hire and attempted murder in aid of racketeering.
Iran has targeted Alinejad for years because of her advocacy for women’s rights and unflinching criticism of the regime. Alinejad, who in addition to her activism is a journalist and author, has publicized Tehran’s human rights attacks on social media – and demanded change.
Alinejad described the pain that continues to linger from this assassination attempt in an address to the court about 30 minutes before the judge, Colleen McMahon, issued her sentence.
“My crime is just giving voice to women of Iran – that’s it,” she said.
“I crossed an ocean to come to America to have a normal life – and I don’t have a normal life,” Alinejad also said, describing frequent moves between safe houses since the murder plot was foiled three years ago.
“I’m a brave woman. I’m a strong woman. They couldn’t break me,” she said moments later. “But, they brought fear [into] my life.”
She urged McMahon to impose a lengthy sentence as a deterrent to Iran. “This court can send a signal to the regime in Iran that they cannot hire criminals – Russian mobsters – again.”
Alinejad, who wore a deep red leather coat, patterned white-and-blue dress, black combat boots and a white flower in her hair, repeatedly turned in the direction of Amirov and Omarov. Both men looked forward during her address.
Alinejad described the attempted hit during her testimony at Amirov and Omarov’s trial. In late July 2022, Alinejad recalled, she saw a “normal”-seeming man outside her home.
“He was walking and then he had a phone in his hand,” she said during testimony. After noticing him speaking, Alinejad said “What?”, thinking that the man might want to talk to her.
She then realized that the man, later identified as Khalid Mehdiyev, was on the phone. Alinejad apologized and grew concerned.
“I was like, the guy is a little bit suspicious, so I got panicked. I ran to my entrance door,” Alinejad recalled. She scrambled to get the key and then saw him in her front garden, she told jurors.
Prosecutors said that Amirov and Omarov had paid Mehdiyev $30,000 to kill Alinejad, and the plan was detailed in court proceedings. Mehdiyev took the stand as a government witness at trial.
The prosecution said the Iranian government paid Amirov and Omarov $500,000 to coordinate the assassination. Four Iranians, including a brigadier general in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, werecharged in relation to the plot. All are thought to be in Iran.
Omarov pressed for a maximum sentence of 10 years in court papers. Defense attorney Elena Fast name-checked Fyodor Dostoevsky’s 1866 novel Crime and Punishment in her push for less time behind bars than the 55 years prosecutors requested for each man.
“Do you understand what it means when you have nowhere to turn?” Fast said, quoting the novel. She said the novel showed “there still needs to be a path back to humanity” for the guilty.
As Fast invoked Dostoevsky, Alinejad smiled, seemingly incredulous at the comparison of a Russian mobster hired to coordinate an assassination, to a troubled fictional character.
The literary reference was not surprising considering his lawyers’ claims in pre-sentencing paperwork that Omarov suffered from “extreme paranoia” related to succession issues in the Russian mob.
Omarov, as the “blood relative” of a mob leader murdered by his own bodyguard, faced death threats and moved between countries to escape his own would-be killers – and he was convinced that confidants might poison him. The defense said this backdrop provided context for his behavior.
“The stress from this process left Mr Omarov chainsmoking cigarettes to calm himself, unable to eat, and caused him to experience difficulty sleeping for a long period of time,” his defense said in court papers. This, in turn “wreaked havoc on Mr Omarov’s normally rational thought process, transforming the fair and respected street adjudicator into the unrecognizable person”.
Amirov’s lawyers pushed for a sentence of no more than 13 years behind bars. In court, they nearly suggested that something positive came out of the foiled plot.
“Ms Alinejad has shown, and I believe will continue to show, far from being injured, she is stronger [from] the acts here,” defense attorney Michael Martin said. As Martin flirted with this silver lining, Alinejad’s eyes widened in surprise, and she shook her head.
The tone was not all that different from their court filings, which sought to downplay the potential efficacy of this plot. They conceded that it was “hair-raising to think that there was an assault weapon and ammunition stowed in a bag in Mr Mehdiyev’s car”, but that “the gun was never removed from the bag and the actions of the cooperating witnesses gave rise to some questions about whether Mr Mehdiyev was primed to act or too lost in his own unknown intentions to act with effect”.
Their plea for leniency also argued that “no one was harmed” in the assassination plot.
Amirov spoke briefly before McMahon handed down his sentence. He took issue with the portrayal of the “thieves” during trial; prosecutors said that they belonged to an organized crime group called the Thieves in Law, which requires all members earn their living through crime.
“The Thieves were portrayed as very bad people,” Amirov said through a translator. “But that is not how we are.”
“In the end, we try to make fair decisions,” he said, telling McMahon that she is a fair person and that “I know you will make a fair decision.”
McMahon referred to Amirov’s comments on fairness in handing down the sentence. “It is not fair that Ms Alinejad and her husband and her children have had their lives upended,” she said. “It is not fair that Ms Alinejad should live in constant fear.”
McMahon sentenced Omarov shortly thereafter. When she stated that he too would be imprisoned more than two decades, Alinejad turned to her many supporters in the gallery, raised a fist, and smiled.
Alinejad’s message was clear after court concluded. As a beaming Alinejad started to leave the courtroom, she told supporters: “I love justice.”
