2 men sentenced in regime plot to kill Iranian-American journalist

Iranian-American journalist Masih Alinejad wins applause in a New York City federal courtroom as two purported Russian mobsters were each sentenced to 25 years behind bars for hiring a hitman to kill her at her Brooklyn home three years ago, on behalf of the Iranian government.

“I crossed an ocean to come to America and have a normal life and I don’t have a normal life,” she says just before Judge Colleen McMahon announces the sentences in Manhattan federal court for Rafat Amirov, 46, and Polad Omarov, 41.

“I’m a brave woman. I’m a strong woman. They couldn’t break me. But they brought fear to my life. These criminals turned my life upside down,” she says as she spoke at a lectern near the men, who sat in prison uniforms with their hands folded before them.

McMahon says the men had committed a “terrible, terrible crime.”

Assistant US Attorney Michael D. Lockard had urged McMahon to dispense 55-year prison terms to the men. He said they were willing to carry out the desires of Iran to silence Alinejad, who has an online following of millions of people, more than the supreme leader of Iran.

He said the intended target of the assassination plot was not just Alinejad, “but those millions of people who look to Masih Alinejad to be their voice, to promote their cause and to shine a light on the corrupt and deadly tactics of the government of Iran.”