Three charged with Iran-backed plot to assassinate journalist in US

Rafat Amirov, Polad Omarov and Khalid Mehdiyev were charged with murder-for-hire and money laundering for their role in the thwarted Tehran-backed plot, the Department of Justice said in a statement.

Alinejad told Reuters said she was invited to the FBI headquarters in Manhattan on Friday morning where a dozen agents described to her the details of the alleged plot.

In July, the men had planned to get Alinejad out of her house by asking her for flowers from her garden, and then gun her down, authorities said.

Her elaborate garden is well known in the neighborhood: each section is dedicated to family in Iran from whom she has been separated for 13 years. The assailants had been monitoring the property and may have observed that she often shares flowers with her neighbors, she said.

US prosecutors in 2021 charged four Iranians alleged to be intelligence operatives for Tehran with plotting to kidnap a New York-based journalist and activist. While the target of the plot was not named, Reuters confirmed she was Alinejad.

Amirov was arrested on Thursday and will have a pre-trial hearing in federal court in Manhattan later on Friday. Omarov was arrested in the Czech Republic earlier this month, and the United States is seeking his extradition.

The United States in 2011 arrested one man it said was linked to an Iranian plot to assassinate the then Saudi Arabian ambassador to Washington at a restaurant he frequented in the capital.

Washington accuses Tehran of backing terrorism and pursuing nuclear arms, charges Iran denies.