Three arrested in Iran-linked plot to assassinate U.S. journalist, DOJ says

Three men have been arrested for a murder-for-hire plot that targeted a U.S. journalist and human rights activist of Iranian origin who has been a prominent critic of Iran, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced Friday. 

The same victim, who lives in Brooklyn, New York, had been the target of an earlier kidnapping plot, which led the Department of Justice in 2021 to obtain an indictment against four people who had ties with Iranian intelligence, officials said.

Masih Alinejad, an exiled Iranian journalist, identified herself in 2021 as the target of that kidnapping plot. Alinejad did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The latest plot began in 2022, when members of an Eastern European criminal organization with ties to Iran were enlisted to assassinate the victim, according to an indictment, which does not identify the victim by name.

That group’s participation in the plot was directed by a man named Rafat Amirov, the group’s leader, who lives in Iran and “who was tasked with targeting the Victim by individuals in Iran,” according to the indictment, which was unsealed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.

Amirov was taken into custody on Thursday in New York.

Charged with him were Polad Omarov, a resident of the Czech Republican who was arrested there in early January, and Khalid Mediyev, who lives in Yonkers, New York. Mediyeve was arrested last July, authorities said.

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