(Reuters) A self-professed member of a Russian organized crime group said on Tuesday he once tried to kill an Iranian-American female journalist and activist, making the admission in testimony at a U.S. trial of two associates.
Khalid Mehdiyev, 27, told jurors he was arrested in July 2022 in his car in Brooklyn, while in possession of an AK-47 rifle and a ski mask.
“I was there to try to kill the journalist,” Mehdiyev said in Manhattan federal court.
Prosecutors say Mehdiyev was hired by the associates Rafat Amirov and Polad Omarov to kill Masih Alinejad, a New York-based journalist who left Iran in 2009 and is known for outspoken criticism of the government in Tehran and its treatment of women.
