NEW YORK, NY.- The Justice Department said on Friday that it had charged three men in a plot hatched in Iran to assassinate Masih Alinejad, an American human-rights activist in Brooklyn who has criticized the country’s repression of women.

The men, Rafat Amirov, of Iran, Polad Omarov, of the Czech Republic, and Khalid Mehdiyev, an Azerbaijani man living in Yonkers, were charged with murder-for-hire and money-laundering conspiracy counts, according to an indictment unsealed in Manhattan. They are members of an Eastern European criminal organization, known by its members as Thieves-in-Law, which has ties to Iran and last year was tasked with carrying out Alinejad’s killing, the indictment says.

Mehdiyev, 24, was arrested in July, after he was found with a loaded AK-47-style assault rifle outside Alinejad’s house. Mehdiyev, at the direction of the two other men, “was preparing imminently to execute the attack,” the indictment says.

“This matter is going to be over today, brother,” Omarov said in a message to Amirov on July 27, according to the indictment. “I told them to make a birthday present for me.”

The announcement of the charges at a news conference in Washington comes as Attorney General Merrick Garland, engulfed by the furor surrounding the appointment of two special counsels investigating former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden over their handling of classified documents, has sought to emphasize external threats by increasingly aggressive foreign actors, especially Iran and China.

Lisa Monaco, the deputy attorney general, said the United States had increasingly seen “the blending of national security and criminal threats, as rogue nations and criminal organizations make common cause and share capabilities.”

“All too often,” she said, “they seek refuge in countries they believe will protect and empower them — in this case, Iran.”

Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said: “Let me be clear: In the United States, free speech is a hallmark of our Constitution. In Iran, it marks you for death. We will safeguard our citizens and their right to free expression.”

Alinejad, a journalist who has said she was forced to leave Iran more than a decade ago, has been unsparing in her criticism of its government.

In a statement to The New York Times, she said she learned of the charges against the three men from the FBI on Friday.

“It was shocking, but I’m not scared for my life,” Alinejad said. “My heroes are brave Iranian women who are leading a progressive revolution, which is called ‘woman, life, freedom,’ to get rid of this terrorist regime.”

The announcement of the charges comes 18 months after the Southern District of New York and the FBI said they had broken up a plot to kidnap Alinejad and forcibly render her to Iran, for likely execution. Four Iranians were charged in the kidnapping conspiracy, including an intelligence official and others described as intelligence assets. All four remain fugitives, prosecutors have said.

Mehdiyev, the man who the authorities said was found outside Alinejad’s home with the assault rifle, has been jailed since his arrest.

Omarov, 38, was arrested in the Czech Republic Jan. 4, and the United States will seek his extradition, prosecutors said. Amirov, 43, was taken into custody overseas in the past week, according to a senior law enforcement official, and was arraigned in Manhattan on Friday.

As he entered the courtroom, Amirov stood with his chest puffed out, his jaw thrust forward and his thick arms swinging. Throughout a brief arraignment, he sat bouncing his knee, affirming through an interpreter that he understood the charges against him. He pleaded not guilty and was ordered detained.

Garland described the plot as the culmination of Tehran’s long efforts to silence Alinejad, who has written in The New York Times about why she was forced to flee her homeland in 2009.

“As a journalist in Iran, I often got into trouble exposing the regime’s mismanagement and corruption until, eventually, my press pass was revoked,” she wrote.

The indictment does not say Iranian officials were behind the assassination plot, but it suggests a connection. Iran’s delegation to the United Nations did not immediately return a request for comment.

According to the indictment, the defendants began planning to kill Alinejad in July, when Amirov, the Iran-based defendant, received “targeting” information — images of Alinejad’s home from an internet mapping service, her address and two photographs of her — from other people in Iran, who were not identified.




He sent the information to Omarov, a Georgian citizen based in Eastern Europe.

Mehdiyev traveled to Brooklyn, where he took photographs and made a video showing Alinejad’s house, which were sent to Amirov and Omarov.

They then arranged for a payment of $30,000 in cash to be made to Mehdiyev, to buy an assault rifle and carry out the killing, the indictment says.

Mehdiyev sent Omarov a photograph of the cash, which was wrapped in rubber bands.

Not all of the money went to the alleged plot: Mehdiyev diverted $10,000 to a “romantic partner in Eastern Europe,” the indictment says.

On July 19, he obtained the assault rifle with an obliterated serial number.

He messaged a housemate the next day, the indictment says: “You’d lose your mind if you saw it.”

Over the next week or so, Mehdiyev traveled repeatedly to Brooklyn to surveil Alinejad, her family members and her house.

In one exchange on July 24 cited in the indictment, Omarov messaged Mehdiyev, asking where he was.

“At the crime scene,” Mehdiyev responded.

“OK. You are a man!” Omarov replied.

Mehdiyev wrote back: “We blocked it from both sides, it will be a show once she steps out of the house.”

On July 26, Mehdiyev and Omarov exchanged messages about strategies to lure Alinejad to her front door — including the possibility of asking her for flowers from her garden. But she did not come to the door, the indictment notes.

On July 28, Mehdiyev returned to Alinejad’s house and sent Omarov a video made from inside his car, the indictment says. It showed Mehdiyev displaying the rifle in a suitcase, with the caption “we are ready.”

Later that day, Alinejad, detecting suspicious activity outside her house, left the area, and Mehdiyev departed about 15 minutes later, the indictment says. He was stopped by New York City Police officers after a traffic violation, and they found inside his car the rifle, two ammunition magazines, about 66 rounds of ammunition, a black ski mask and about $1,100 in cash.

After Mehdiyev was ordered held at a federal detention center, he obtained a contraband cellphone and used it to communicate with Omarov and others, the indictment says. In one message, he sent a photograph of his prisoner identification card and a view of his cell, as proof of his arrest, and asked for money to buy food and cigarettes.

On Aug. 7, Amirov and Omarov discussed news coverage of Mehdiyev’s arrest.

“He has become popular, brother,” Amirov wrote.

“I hope he will not make trouble for me,” Omarov replied.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.