Two members of an Jap European felony group had been “hired guns for the government of Iran” in a plot to assassinate an Iran-born journalist at her New York Metropolis residence three years in the past, a prosecutor instructed a federal jury in a gap assertion on Tuesday firstly of a trial for the boys.
Assistant U.S. Lawyer Jacob Gutwillig mentioned the plot to assassinate Masih Alinejad was a part of Iran’s greater than decade-long quest to silence a lady who uncovered the Iranian regime for human rights a buses and for silencing political expression.
The prosecutor instructed jurors they may hear the writer and contributor to Voice of America clarify why the federal government of Iran needed to silence her.
Alinejad fled Iran following the nation’s disputed 2009 presidential election and have become a U.S. citizen in October 2019. She’s going to describe why she stands as much as the Iranian regime, Gutwillig mentioned, and why she “refuses to back down.”
“Masih Alinejad inspires others in Iran and around the world to do the same thing. That is why they want to kill her. And you will hear all of that from Ms. Alinejad herself,” he mentioned.
On trial on a murder-for-hire depend and different prices are Rafat Amirov and Polad Omarov, natives of Azerbaijan, which shares a border and cultural ties with Iran.
The prosecutor instructed jurors that key testimony will come from the person employed to kill Alinejad: Khalid Mahdiyev of Yonkers.
Detective Daniel Smith, the trial’s first witness, mentioned Mahdiyev was arrested in July 2022 when he ran a cease sign up Alinejad’s neighborhood and was discovered to be driving regardless of a suspended driver’s license. A search of his automotive turned up a loaded AK-47 assault rifle, Smith mentioned.
Protection attorneys for Amirov and Omarov instructed jurors in opening statements that their purchasers weren’t responsible and that prosecutors’ proof was merely circumstantial.
Lawyer Michael Martin, representing Amirov, mentioned his consumer had insisted for the 25 months since his January 2023 arrest that he was not responsible.
He promised to discredit the testimony of Mahdiyev, calling him a “murderer, a kidnapper, an arsonist, a robber, an extortionist, a scammer, a fraudster and a liar.”
“That,” he added, “will be undisputed.”
Lawyer Michael Perkins, representing Omarov, referred to as his consumer a “scam artist” who had conned the Iranian authorities out of some huge cash.
“To earn that money, he did as close to nothing as possible,” Perkins mentioned. “Mr. Omarov had no intention, no settlement, with anybody to kill Ms. Alinejad.”
Gutwillig mentioned the federal government of Iran had lengthy attacked Alinejad, smearing her fame, imprisoning her brother and making an attempt to kidnap her and produce her again to Iran in 2020. He mentioned Iranian officers then agreed to the $500,000 assassination plot with the 2 males who needed to earn a living and improve their positions of their organized crime group.
“The defendants were hired guns for the government of Iran,” he mentioned.
He mentioned Alinejad grew to become a goal of Iran after encouraging ladies in Iran to share messages and movies of girls protesting the regime by refusing to put on head coverings, or hijabs, in public in Iran, subjecting them to arrest or beatings by the nation’s morality police.
“She shared them with millions. She shined a light on the government of Iran’s oppression of women, and that enraged the regime” Gutwillig mentioned.
