Activist After Sentencing: 'They Couldn't Break Me'

UPDATE Oct 30, 2025 8:20 AM CDT

Two purported Russian mobsters said to have been working for an Iranian military higher-up were each sentenced to 25 years behind bars on Wednesday for hiring a hitman to kill Iranian-American journalist Masih Alinejad at her Brooklyn home three years ago on behalf of the Iranian government, reports the AP. Judge Colleen McMahon said that Rafat Amirov, 46, and Polad Omarov, 41, had committed a "terrible, terrible crime," and that she hoped her sentence would alert foreign gangs and foreign powers "that this kind of conduct will not be tolerated" by the US. She added that their plan was a "politically motivated assassination attempt," per the New York Times. Alinejad's words on her would-be attackers after the sentencing: "They couldn't break me."

Oct 22, 2024 2:10 PM CDT

An official with Iran's Revolutionary Guard has been charged in a failed plot to kill an Iranian American author on US soil, per the AP. Ruhollah Bazghandi and three other men were charged in a new indictment of trying to kill Masih Alinejad in Brooklyn in 2022, according to the New York Times. The opposition activist and journalist has been living in exile in New York City. Her identity isn't in court papers, but she confirmed to the AP that she was the intended target. Alinejad fled Iran following the country's disputed 2009 presidential election. Bazghandi, who isn't in custody, is described in court papers as a brigadier general who previously served as chief of the Revolutionary Guard's counterintelligence department.

In 2017, the Office of Foreign Assets Control—a wing of the US Department of the Treasury—designated the Revolutionary Guard as a global terrorist group, saying it has played a key role in supporting Iran's involvement in international terrorism. In April 2023, the office said Bazghandi was involved in assassination plots against journalists, Israeli citizens, and others deemed enemies of Iran. The indictment also accuses him of taking part in the detention of foreign prisoners in Iran and in operations in Syria by the Revolutionary Guard's counterintelligence department.