NEW YORK: A US judge jailed two men for 25 years each Wednesday for a plot allegedly hatched by Tehran to kill Iranian-American journalist Masih Alinejad, her team confirmed to AFP.
Rafat Amirov and Polad Omarov, both members of an eastern European criminal gang, orchestrated a failed plot to assassinate campaigning reporter Alinejad.
“They wanted to see me dead on my porch in Brooklyn and thanks to the law enforcement agencies, I am alive and Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader (of Iran), is humiliated,” Alinejad said outside a Manhattan courthouse following the sentencing, brandishing a sunflower.
“I was nervous but at the same time very empowered to speak the truth,” she added before dancing and singing in Farsi.
Amirov and Omarov were both jailed for 25 years, a spokesman for Alinejad said following the hearing, after prosecutors had sought 55-year terms for each, according to court filings.
According to the Justice Department, the jailed men, members of the eastern European crime network, were “contracted” by Ruhollah Bazghandi — identified as a brigadier general in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards — and other members of his network to murder Alinejad.
In July 2022, a man hired to carry out the assassination was arrested near Alinejad’s New York home with a loaded AK-47 assault rifle, the court heard over the two week trial.
The 49-year-old Alinejad, one of the most prominent dissident campaigners against Iranian authorities, for years has pushed for the abolition of the obligatory headscarf in Iran under the banner of “MyStealthyFreedom.”
She left Iran in 2009.
Charges were unsealed in October 2024 against Bazghandi, a former intelligence officer.
Three other Iranians with “connections to the government of Iran” — Hajj Taher, Hossein Sedighi and Seyed Mohammad Forouzan — were indicted over the affair.
The three are not in US custody and are believed to be in Iran. They face charges of conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire and money laundering.
Tehran has routinely rejected similar US accusations about alleged plots to kill American officials or politicians in the past.
The United States has also accused Iran of seeking to assassinate US officials in retaliation for Washington’s killing of Revolutionary Guards commander Qasem Soleimani in 2020.
The State Department previously announced a $20 million reward for information leading to the arrest of the alleged Iranian mastermind behind a plot to assassinate former White House official John Bolton.
US jails two men for 25 years over plot to kill Iranian-American reporter
https://arab.news/me4w9
US jails two men for 25 years over plot to kill Iranian-American reporter
- Rafat Amirov and Polad Omarov, both members of an eastern European criminal gang, orchestrated a failed plot to assassinate campaigning reporter Alinejad
- US has accused Iran of seeking to assassinate US officials in retaliation for Washington’s killing of Revolutionary Guards commander Qasem Soleimani in 2020
BBC slammed for ‘shameful’ cut to ‘free Palestine’ comment at BAFTA Awards
- Broadcaster removes from broadcast part of filmmaker Akinola Davies Jr.’s acceptance speech at the British Academy Film Awards
- Amnesty UK praises filmmaker for speaking up for those ‘facing and fleeing from persecution and mass atrocities’
LONDON: The BBC was accused on Monday of a “shameful” decision after it cut part of an acceptance speech at the previous night’s British Academy Film Awards in which a filmmaker uttered the phrase “free Palestine.”
British-Nigerian director and co-writer Akinola Davies Jr. and his brother, co-writer Wale Davies were collecting the award for outstanding debut by a British writer, director or producer for their film “My Father’s Shadow” when the former made the comment.
The BBC chose not to include the final part of his speech when it broadcast the BAFTAs ceremony later in the evening. However, the corporation did broadcast an inadvertent racist slur shouted by a person with Tourette syndrome while Black actors Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo were presenting an award.
Akinola thanked industry figures and family for their support as he accepted the award, before dedicating it to “all those whose parents migrated to obtain a better life for their children.”
In the final part of his speech, cut by the BBC, he said: “To the economic migrant, the conflict migrant, those under occupation, dictatorship, persecution and those experiencing genocide, you matter and your stories matter more than ever.
“Your dreams are an act of resistance. To those watching at home, archive your loved ones, archive your stories yesterday, today and forever. For Nigeria, for London, Congo, Sudan, free Palestine. Thank you.”
The BBC, which broadcast the ceremony with a two-hour time delay, said the cut was made for timing reasons.
A spokesperson told Deadline: “The live event is three hours, and it has to be reduced to two hours for its on-air slot. The same happened to other speeches made during the night, and all edits were made to ensure the program was delivered to time. All winners’ speeches will be available to watch via BAFTA’s YouTube Channel.”
Human rights campaign group Amnesty UK described the decision by the BBC to cut part of the speech as “shameful.”
It added: “Thank you Akinola Davies Jr. for using your platform to speak out for the rights of migrants and people facing and fleeing from persecution and mass atrocities, from the Congo to Sudan to Palestine.”
In June last year, the BBC was at the center of a row after it broadcast a Glastonbury Festival performance by the duo Bob Vylan, during which the lead singer chanted “death to the IDF” in protest against the Israeli Defense Forces’ assault on Gaza.
