PanamaTimes

Monday, Mar 18, 2024

US says Iran hired 3 members of Eastern European mafia to murder dissident

US says Iran hired 3 members of Eastern European mafia to murder dissident

The three men plotted to kill outspoken human rights campaigner Masih Alinejad in exchange for cash after a failed previous attempt by Iran to kidnap her.
The United States charged three suspected members of an Eastern Europe-based mafia organization with planning to assassinate Iranian-American activist Masih Alinejad at the behest of Iran, according to federal indictments unsealed Friday.

The U.S. Justice Department said the three men — Rafat Amirov, Polad Omarov and Khalid Mehdiyev, all of whom have been arrested — plotted to kill the outspoken human rights campaigner in July in exchange for cash after the failure of a previous attempt by Iran to kidnap Alinejad.

“The victim publicized the Iranian government’s human rights abuses, discriminatory treatment of women, suppression of democratic participation and expression, and use of arbitrary imprisonment, torture, and execution,” U.S. Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said in a statement. “We will stop at nothing to identify, find, and bring to justice those who endanger the safety of the American people.”

The three men have been charged with offenses including conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire and money laundering, and could face decades in prison if convicted.

Iran has tried to kill and kidnap dozens of dissidents and others it perceives to be enemies since the so-called Islamic Revolution in 1979, Western officials say, but the attempt to assassinate Alinejad on American soil counts as its most brazen operation in recent years.

Alinejad, a journalist and social media phenomenon in Iran and beyond, has been one of the most vocal critics of Iran’s brutal regime, regularly calling it out for its mistreatment of women and others who dare to challenge the mullahs’ authority.

Alinejad said in a video statement posted on Twitter that the FBI had briefed her on the arrests in a meeting on Friday.

“Let me make it clear: I’m not scared for my life because I knew that killing, assassinating, hanging, torturing, raping is in the DNA of the Islamic Republic and that’s why I came to the USA,” she said, calling on the American government to take “strong action” against Iran, noting the hundreds of people the regime has killed and arrested amid the recent wave of protests there.

“You cannot negotiate with a terror regime,” she said.

American authorities discovered the latest alleged plot against Alinejad in July. Mehdiyev, a resident of Yonkers, New York, was arrested after a routine traffic stop near Alinejad’s Brooklyn residence. Police discovered an AK-47 assault rifle with the serial number filed off, more than 60 rounds of ammunition and a ski mask in his car.

Immediately before the arrest, Mehdiyev was caught on a video surveillance camera allegedly trying to break into Alinejad’s home.

Prosecutors now allege that Mehdiyev was part of a broader conspiracy directed by Iran that also included Amirov and Omarov, both of whom authorities describe as “leaders” of an Eastern European mafia group. Amirov, who lives in Iran, was arrested in New York on Thursday. Omarov was arrested in the Czech Republic on January 4 and the U.S. plans to request his extradition.

The failed assassination attempt followed an earlier plot to kidnap Alinejad that was foiled by the FBI.

That plan, exposed in July 2021, allegedly involved an attempt by Iranian operatives to kidnap Alinejad from her home in Brooklyn and then take her by speedboat to a tanker in New York Harbor before spiriting her off to Venezuela, an Iranian ally, and then on to the Islamic Republic.
Comments

Oh ya 1 year ago
Brad with the German foreign Ministry coming out the other day and saying Germany was at war with Russia then that means WW3, has started. Russia will not nuke Ukraine as they will own it soon and it has great farmland and natural resources. But Germany, UK, Poland and the USA would be fair targets. Russia has lost millions of people fighting the NAZIS and I bet they will eliminate them this time so they never have to fight them again. This also opens the door to China invading the USA at the same time while they are also fighting Russia. And i would bet that Iran will see their opening and make Israel disappear. And without someone else fighting Israel battles there will be no contest. Iran is said to be the 2nd strongest army in the world.
Brad 1 year ago
The US Government Is A Terrorist Oganization

Al Qaeda 100% Pentagon Run: Michael Springman US Government Gives Terrorists Passport's

DHS Issues New Alert: "Al Qaida Planning More 9-11 Style Attacks in USA"
The US federal government is now, and has been, using Al Qaeda inside Syria in its years-long effort to overthrow the Syrian government.  So if Al Qaeda does, in fact, carry out another attack here inside the United States, we can thank our own federal government for making it possible.
It has a history of issuing visas to terrorists at the request of the CIA.
Just ask Michael Springmann. This is his story.


* The US government used the CIA to overthrow Ukraine in 2014 installed (Petro Poroshenko)

Then installed Zelensky a known actor/comedian on record.

The CIA is running this operation against the BRICS system but also to put NATO military bases along Thr Russian border.

For centuries, it has been at the center of a tug-of-war between powers seeking to control its rich lands and access to the Black Sea.
 Western

media will claim it's a people’s revolution, it was in fact a coup d’état scripted and staged by NGO (George Soros ) the U.S. State Department.

They’re linked to the CIA…CIA interests are not America’s interests, they never have been. The CIA has been morally corrupt since the beginning.”

Days after Russia invaded Ukraine in February, Stone condemned the “hysteria of the Western media” and called for a sober analysis of the geopolitical situation from all sides.

Watch: Oliver Stone’s Bombshell Ukraine On Fire 🔥
Oh ya 1 year ago
Well sort of like when the US hires Blackwater and others right? The pot calling the kettle black me thinks

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