Exiled Iranian-American activist Masih Alinejad got here face-to-face Wednesday with the 2 gangsters who openly despatched a bumbling hitman to her Brooklyn dwelling to kill her — proclaiming “they couldn’t break me” earlier than the duo had been every sentenced to 25 years in federal jail.
”I’m an amazing girl. I’m a powerful girl,” Alinejad mentioned in Manhattan federal courtroom, standing toes away from Rafat Amirov, 46, and Polad Omarov, 41, who had been convicted in March of agreeing to pocket $500,000 in “blood cash” from the barbarous theocratic regime to hold out the failed July 2022 hit.
Omarov, initially from Iran, and Amirov, of the nation of Georgia, despatched would-be triggerman Khalid Mehdiyev to Alinejad’s Flatbush dwelling with a loaded AK-47 assault rifle, jurors heard.
Each defendants had been high-ranking members of a Russian mob crew often called “Thieves-in Struggle,” in line with the feds, whereas Mehdiyev was a lower-level henchman who revealed at trial that he was working at a Bronx pizza parlor when tapped for the moist work.
Senior US District Choose Colleen McMahon known as the motley crew a “gang of thugs” earlier than passing sentence.
“There isn’t any doubt in my thoughts that it is a horrible crime that has had some horrible ramifications on some very wonderful folks,” McMahon mentioned.
Mehdiyev, who accepted a plea deal, testified at his former bosses’ trial that he tousled the high-stakes hit in spectacular vogue — together with by ordering meals to his Subaru, which bore suspiciously out-of-state license plates, as he lurked on the leafy avenue exterior Alinejad’s dwelling.
The aspiring murderer was busted July 28, 2022, after working a cease signal whereas sporting a ski masks, prompting cops to look his automobile and discover the gun with a bullet within the chamber.
Alinejad, 49, is understood for her outspoken criticism of the Iranian authorities and for encouraging ladies to defy the nation’s draconian regulation forcing them to put on headscarves, or hijabs, or threat imprisonment.
She advised the courtroom Wednesday that she has been compelled to maneuver 21 occasions since fleeing Iran in 2009, and US officers say she has survived a number of different assassination and kidnapping makes an attempt.
“I crossed an ocean to America to have a standard life, and I don’t have a standard life,” Alinejad mentioned. “Once I got here right here, my dream was to leap on a bicycle and simply bike freely, and now, I can’t try this due to these criminals.”
The Manhattan federal jury took below 4 hours March 20 to convict Amirov and Omarov of all prices, together with murder-for-hire, conspiracy, and cash laundering.
Alinejad took the stand and described the chilling second she noticed her would-be killer staring straight into her eyes by way of the sunflower patch on her entrance porch the day he was arrested, main her to imagine she was merely admiring her backyard.
Jurors additionally heard proof of Omarov and Amirov nonchalantly discussing murdering Alinejad as a “birthday current” to their Iranian backers.
“I’m the survivor of this assassination plot, and even on this room at the moment I felt the humiliation of my life being handled as a enterprise transaction,” she advised the courtroom.
“These guys, they barely know who I’m,” she added.
Mehdiyev, who lived in Yonkers on the time of his arrest, will probably be sentenced at a later date.
