US Convicts Two Men For Plotting To Kill Journalist Masih

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio shared on Saturday the decision by a federal jury which convicted two crime leaders who had been hired to murder Iranian-American journalist Masih Alinejad on behalf of the Iranian government.

According to the US Department of Justice, the Iranian government hired Polad Omarov and Rafat Amirov to kill Masih Alinejad in exchange for USD 5,00,000.

In a post on X, Rubio said that the court’s decision shows that lethal plots against Americans will be met with “swift justice and accountability.”

He also said that under the leadership of US President Donald Trump, Iranian proxies and front groups will be “investigated, disrupted and prosecuted.”

“Yesterday’s court decision shows Iran’s attempts at lethal plotting against Americans like @AlinejadMasih will be met with swift justice & accountability. Under @POTUS, Iran’s front groups and proxies trying to operate in the U.S. will be investigated, disrupted, and prosecuted”, Rubio wrote on X.

Masih Alinjead is an Iranian-American journalist and women’s rights activist. As the American Congress has described her, she has been one of the leading figures critical of Iran.

“In July 2022, law enforcement agents arrested a member of an East European criminal gang armed with an AK47 outside her house. That arrest came a year after the FBI foiled a plot by Iranian intelligence agents to kidnap Alinejad from Brooklyn and take her to Venezuela and onward to Iran,” the statement observed.

Born and raised in Iran, Alinejad started her professional career as a parliamentary journalist in Tehran, who was eventually forced to leave Iran in 2009 after the crackdown on the protests against the disputed presidential elections.

Responding to the comments made by Marco Rubio, Alinejad thanked him for supporting her and standing up against Iran’s “acts of terror on US soil.”

Slamming the Biden administration for failing to hold Iran accountable, she said, “Instead of enforcing sanctions, they handed over billions of dollars, emboldening the regime to continue its deadly operations with their proxies and even targeting @POTUS.”

“It’s time to use strength and resolve to make them pay for their actions. Thank you for your leadership, for standing up for freedom, and for supporting the Iranian people who want to see an end to the dictatorship,” she wrote in a post on X.

According to a statement issued by the US Department of Justice (DOJ), a federal jury returned guilty verdicts on all five counts in the indictment against Rafat Amirov of Iran and Polad Omarov of Georgia, who were convicted of murder-for-hire and attempted murder in aid of racketeering charges, in a trial before the US District Judge Colleen McMahon.

The statement said that Amirov and Omarov are scheduled to be sentenced on September 17.

“The defendants participated in a brazen plot to kill an Iranian American dissident in New York who criticised the regime in Iran,” said Acting Assistant Director Roman Rozhavsky of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division.

Referring to the court documents, the DOJ said that Amirov and Omarov were high-ranking members of an Eastern European organised crime group who worked with other people to attempt to kill Masih Alinejad on instructions from high-ranking members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

DOJ noted that attempts had also been made in 2020 and 2021, wherein Iranian intelligence officials and assets plotted to kidnap Alinejad from within the US for rendition to Iran in an effort to silence her criticism of the Iranian regime.

Amirov and Omarov were convicted on five counts, namely murder-for-hire, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison; conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison; conspiracy to commit money laundering, which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison; attempted murder in aid of racketeering, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison; and possession and use of a firearm in connection with the attempted murder, which carries a maximum penalty of life in prison and a mandatory minimum penalty of five years in prison. (ANI)