Oct. 30 (UPI) — Accepting a $500,000 contract to kill an Iranian-American journalist Masih Alinejad earned Russians Rafat Amirov and Polad Omarov each 25 years in prison on Thursday.
U.S. District Court of Southern New York Judge Colleen McMahon sentenced Omarov and Amirov after they were found guilty in March, the Justice Department announced in a news release.
“The defendants and their criminal associates came chillingly close to gunning down an Iranian-American journalist on the streets of New York,” Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Eisenberg said.
“Tehran has long sought to silence Ms. Alinejad,” Eisenberg said, “and after multiple failed kidnapping attempts, turned to Omarov and Amirov and their organization to stalk and murder her.”
The DOJ describes the two Russians as “two highly ranked members of the Russian mob.”
The Iranian government hired the pair to kill Alinejad, who is also an author and a human rights activist.
The motive was to “silence her criticism of the Iranian government and public advocacy of human rights,” the DOJ said.
She has published stories about the Iranian government’s human rights abuses, especially against women, repression of political expression and killing Iranians who engage in peaceful protests.
The DOJ said the Iranian government tried to kidnap Alinejadin in the United States in 2020 and 2021 and turned to the Russian mob after failing.
Alinejad lives in the United States, and a hitman sent by Omarovand Amirov was found driving a vehicle outside her Brooklyn apartment while armed with an AK-47 on July 28, 2022, according to the DOJ.
Eisenberg said the case is “part of a well-documented and disturbing rise in plots involving criminal networks paid by Iran to target dissidents in the United States and around the world.”
