NEW YORK — Two contributors of an Jap Ecu felony group have been “employed weapons for the federal government of Iran” in a plot to assassinate an Iran-born journalist at her New York Town place of abode 3 years in the past, a prosecutor informed a federal jury in a gap commentary on Tuesday at the beginning of an ordeal for the lads.
Assistant U.S. Lawyer Jacob Gutwillig mentioned the plot to assassinate Masih Alinejad was once a part of Iran’s greater than decade-long quest to silence a lady who uncovered the Iranian regime for human rights abuses and for silencing political expression.
The prosecutor informed jurors they’ll listen the writer and contributor to Voice of The united states provide an explanation for why the federal government of Iran sought after to silence her.
Alinejad fled Iran following the rustic’s disputed 2009 presidential election and 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 backpedal.”
“Masih Alinejad evokes others in Iran and around the globe to do the similar factor. This is the reason they need to kill her. And you are going to listen all of that from Ms. Alinejad herself,” he mentioned.
On trial on a murder-for-hire depend and different fees are Rafat Amirov and Polad Omarov, natives of Azerbaijan, which stocks a border and cultural ties with Iran.
The prosecutor informed 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 once arrested in July 2022 when he ran a prevent check in Alinejad’s group and was once discovered to be riding in spite of a suspended driving force’s license. A seek of his automotive became up a loaded AK-47 attack rifle, Smith mentioned.
Protection lawyers for Amirov and Omarov informed jurors in opening statements that their shoppers weren’t responsible and that prosecutors’ proof was once simply circumstantial.
Lawyer Michael Martin, representing Amirov, mentioned his consumer had insisted for the 25 months since his January 2023 arrest that he was once now not responsible.
He promised to discredit the testimony of Mahdiyev, calling him a “assassin, a kidnapper, an arsonist, a robber, an extortionist, a scammer, a fraudster and a liar.”
“That,” he added, “will likely be undisputed.”
Lawyer Michael Perkins, representing Omarov, known as his consumer a “rip-off artist” who had conned the Iranian govt out of some huge cash.
“To earn that cash, he did as just about not anything as imaginable,” Perkins mentioned. “Mr. Omarov had no purpose, no settlement, with someone to kill Ms. Alinejad.”
Gutwillig mentioned the federal government of Iran had lengthy attacked Alinejad, smearing her popularity, imprisoning her brother and seeking 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 sought after to generate profits and beef up their positions of their arranged crime workforce.
“The defendants have been employed weapons for the federal government of Iran,” he mentioned.
He mentioned Alinejad become a goal of Iran after encouraging ladies in Iran to proportion messages and movies of ladies protesting the regime by way of refusing to put on head coverings, or hijabs, in public in Iran, subjecting them to arrest or beatings by way of the rustic’s morality police.
“She shared them with thousands and thousands. She shined a gentle at the govt of Iran’s oppression of ladies, and that enraged the regime” Gutwillig mentioned.
