By Kayhan Life Staff
“Today is a big day — a day of reckoning,” Iranian-American journalist and women’s rights activist Masih Alinejad told Kayhan Life, as she headed to court to witness the sentencing of two men acting on behalf of the Islamic Republic who had attempted to assassinate her.
Alinejad recalled that after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei instructed Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Commander Hossein Salami “to take action against the person who compared the hijab to the Berlin Wall, two assassins were hired. And today, those two men are being sentenced to prison.”
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On Wednesday, Rafat Amirov, 46, and Polad Omarov, 41, were each sentenced to 25 years in prison by a Manhattan federal court for their roles in a Tehran-backed plot to kill Alinejad.
U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon described the conspiracy as “a terrible, terrible crime.” The sentences were less than the 55 years sought by prosecutors, but well above the 10 to 13 years requested by defense lawyers.
Two Men Sentenced to 25 Years over Iran-Backed Plot to Kill Dissident
A jury in March found both men guilty of attempted murder, conspiracy, and money laundering. Prosecutors said they were paid $500,000 by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to assassinate Alinejad, one of the regime’s most outspoken critics, whose campaign against compulsory hijab laws has galvanized women in Iran and across the diaspora.
Alinejad, 47, fled Iran in 2009 after repeated threats over her reporting and activism. Now living in New York under federal protection, she has used social media to amplify the voices of Iranian women defying the regime’s strict dress codes — at grave personal risk.
At Wednesday’s hearing, she addressed the court directly. “I crossed an ocean to come to America and have a normal life, and I don’t have a normal life,” she said, prompting applause from supporters in the gallery.
Speaking to Kayhan Life Alinejad said she spoke not only for herself, but for “all the women and men who weren’t as fortunate as I’ve been — those whose killers were never arrested and who became victims of the Islamic Republic’s terrorism abroad.”
She expressed hope that the verdict would draw international attention to transnational repression — the targeting of dissidents by authoritarian states beyond their borders.
“Dictators stand united with one another — while democratic countries often do not,” she said. “This is not just about me. It’s about holding the Islamic Republic accountable for exporting its violence to America, Europe, and beyond.”
Alinejad cited a long history of Iranian dissidents targeted abroad — from Ruhollah Zam, executed in 2020 after being lured from France to Iraq, to Jamshid Sharmahd, Shapour Bakhtiar, and Fereydoun Farrokhzad, all victims of Tehran’s shadowy operations.
Alinejad noted that both convicted men were Russian nationals, linking their actions to “the collaboration of dictatorships.”
“When the terrorist IRGC collaborates with Russia — and these two hitmen were Russian — and when previous kidnapping plots involved Venezuela, it shows how the Islamic Republic, with help from Russia, Venezuela, China, and others, carries out assassinations abroad,” she said.
She urged Western governments to end what she called years of “appeasement policies” toward Tehran. “The Islamic Republic is a force of absolute evil — and Western appeasement only strengthens and unites dictators against democracy,” she said. “These sentences must serve as a wake-up call and a tool to unite the Iranian opposition against the regime.”
Wednesday’s sentencing comes three years after the FBI foiled an earlier Iranian regime plot to kidnap Alinejad from her Brooklyn home and forcibly return her to Tehran. That 2021 conspiracy, also linked to Iranian intelligence operatives, involved surveillance of her residence and an escape plan through Venezuela. U.S. officials have cited her case as a prime example of how the Islamic Republic uses coercion and violence to target its critics far beyond Iran’s borders.
A third man, Khalid Mehdiyev, who identified himself as a Russian mob associate, pleaded guilty to attempted murder and illegal possession of a firearm after being arrested outside Alinejad’s home in 2022 with an AK-47 rifle and a ski mask in his car. He testified against Amirov and Omarov and is awaiting sentencing.
For Alinejad, the verdict brought a measure of justice, but not closure. “This trial shows how deeply the Islamic Republic understands deceit and violence,” she said. “It doesn’t just assassinate people physically — it first assassinates their character.”
Expanding on the remarks she made in court, Alinejad told Kayhan Life: “This trial demonstrates how deeply the Islamic Republic understands and practices deceit, violence, and criminality. It shows that the regime not only engages in physical assassinations, but also, before carrying them out, seeks to infiltrate opposition circles to conduct character assassinations, sow distrust, and pave the way for physical elimination.”
Alinejad said the court’s verdict had strengthened her resolve to expose such tactics. “I’m glad the Islamic Republic is being publicly shamed,” she said. “But this is only the beginning. Justice for one case must become justice for all.”
