The two men accused of having been hired by people tied to the Iranian government to assassinate the Iranian-American journalist and human rights activist Masih Alinejad in New York City in the summer of 2022 were found guilty on all five counts at a federal courthouse in Lower Manhattan on Thursday.

“The jury has reached a verdict,” the presiding district judge, Colleen McMahon, announced at 4:30pm in the afternoon. The note came as a surprise. Earlier, the jury had requested to see the testimony of a key witness, Khalid Mehdiyev, and the attorneys were still going through the transcript, and had not yet sent the hard copy to the jury room, when the note came in that the verdict was ready. It appeared that the issue regarding the controversial witness had been resolved without the requested documentation. 

The two Azerbaijani defendants, Rafat Amirov, 46, and Polad Omarov, 40, were arrested overseas in January 2023 and extradited to New York. They were charged with contracting with the Iranian regime to orchestrate the  murder of Ms. Alinejad outside of her Brooklyn home in. On Thursday, they were found guilty on all five counts: murder-for-hire, conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire, money laundering, attempted murder in the aid of racketeering, and firearm use in relation to attempted murder.     

“They couldn’t care less,” Assistant United States Attorney Matthew Hellman told the jury in the morning, when he gave his rebuttal statement, referring to Mr. Amirov and Mr. Omarov, who are both admitted high ranking members of the Russian mob. “It doesn’t matter who she was and what she had to offer to the world.” Mr. Hellman was referring to the defendants’   targeted victim Ms. Alinejad. 

Defense attorneys had argued on Wednesday that the code of the Russian mob dictates that mobsters cannot kill people, especially women, who have not actually hurt a crime boss or member of their own organization, or insulted his honor. And that the code also prohibits criminals from working for any government.  

But Mr. Hellman disputed that argument on Thursday, saying that the “collaboration” with a state was acceptable “if it was lucrative.” In a life of crime, he said, “rules go out the window” and criminals follow only two principles, “money and power.” 

The prosecutor also disagreed with other defense arguments that had questioned the electronic evidence. He even took the assault rifle out that was found in the car of the Bronx-based hitman, Mr.Mehdiyev, whom the two defendants were accused of hiring to carry out the slaying. 

“It is used for killing,” Mr. Hellman said and held the AK-47 style assault rifle, a semi-automatic Norinco, up to the jury box. 

On July 28, 2022, detectives for the New York Police Department stopped Mr. Mehdiyev near Ms. Alinejad’s house after he sped through a stop sign. Officers found the rifle, fully loaded, on his backseat inside a suitcase, along with ammunition, a black ski mask and rubber gloves. Mr. Mehdiyev, who plead guilty and cooperated with the government in hopes of a lower sentence, testified he had been hired to assassinate Ms. Alinejad outside of her home in Brooklyn. Thankfully, the police beat him to the punch.

According to his own testimony, Mr. Mehdiyev started loitering around Ms. Alinejad’s home on about July 13, 2022, continuing for more than two weeks until the day of his arrest on July 28, 2022. He took photographs and videos of her house and sent them to Mr. Omarov, who then forwarded the messages to Mr. Amirov, who was in touch with the Iranians. 

Testimony from two FBI agents laid bare the alleged ties between the Russian mobsters and Iranian officials seeking to have one of their enemies murdered at New York City. 

According to the investigation conducted by the FBI, Mr. Amirov, received a down payment for the hit job of $30,000, which he sent to New York, where Mr. Mehdiyev picked up the money in cash. The jury saw a photograph Mr. Mehdiyev took of the cash bundles, bound with rubber bands and stashed inside a black plastic bag, and sent it to Mr. Omarov. Mr. Mehdiyev transferred $10,000 of that down payment to his direct boss Mr. Omarov, who admitted to FBI agents that he received the money, but told them it was birthday gift from Mr. Mehdiyev. 

The verdict sheets of the two mobsters differed in one small aspect. On count three, money laundering, the jury found the government had proven Mr. Omarov committed two of three crimes, whereas Mr. Amirov had only committed one. There was no financial record of Mr. Amirov’s participation in the money laundering, except for text messages regarding the pick up. 

“The money is ready,” one of the text messages, alleged to be his, read. 

“Is 30k if they ask u How much (it) is,” he allegedly added.  

When they arrested him in January 2025, the FBI, an agent testified, retrieved three phones of which they were only able to crack one and get the encrypted messages, but what they found was enough to convict him.    

The text messages about the “30k” is believed to have been sent to Mr. Omarov on July 18, 2022. Mr. Amirov was saying, the $30,000 down payment was ready to be picked up. But there was no official record. 

This indicates how diligently the jury went through the charges. They had also asked to see financial records from Western Union, Paypall, and money gram.     

The defendants have the right to appeal their verdict. Their attorneys did not want to make a comment. They face a minimum of ten years and a maximum of life in prison. Judge McMahon scheduled the sentencing date for September 17, 2025.  

Ms. Alinejad released a statement after the verdict, in which she called Iran’s Supreme Leader “despicable” and the jury’s decision “a powerful gift from America to the Iranian people, a sign that justice is being served.”

“You lost, Ali Khamenei,” the statement further said, addressing the Ayatollah. “Yes, your corrupt and murderous army acted. But this time, they were humiliated. This time, your mercenaries were caught by the FBI. And now those you hired to kill me will spend years behind bars.”

The trial, which began last Monday, heard also heard testimony from Ms. Alinejad herself. She told the jury that this assassination attempt was not the first time the Iranian regime had come after her. Besides living in safe-houses and hotels, and always fearing an attack on her life, she also received threats. But she told the courtroom, that was packed with her supporters and friends, that for “every insult I get I plant a flower and that’s why I have a beautiful garden… Whenever they try to insult you, go and plant a flower.”