‘I Was There To Kill the Journalist’: Failed Assassin, Who Claims Iran Organized a Hit Job in Brooklyn, Is Grilled on the Witness Stand About a  Lifetime of Murders, Extortion and Deceit

A defense attorney for one of the two men accused of being hired to assassinate Iranian dissident Masih Alinejad in New York City tried to discredit the prosecution’s key witness on Thursday by portraying him to the jury as an inveterate liar. But can it break the government’s case? 

“You told Omarov you were moving in?” Defense attorney Elena Fast asked the witness, Khalid Mehdiyev, a self-proclaimed mobster in an Eastern European crime organization. She was referring to her client Polad Omarov, and asking the witness if he told Mr. Omarov he was moving into the house of his target, the Iranian-American journalist and author Masih Alinejad.  

“Yes, miss,” the 27-year old witness replied. 

“But you never lived there?” Ms. Fast asked, and Mr. Mehdiyev confirmed he never lived in Ms. Alinejad’s house.    

Ms. Fast is defending Mr. Omarov, 40, against charges brought by federal prosecutors, accusing him of having been hired by people with ties to the Iranian government to assassinate Ms. Alinejad, a fierce critic of the Iranian regime, at her home in Brooklyn. A second defendant, who is also on trial for the same charges, is 54-year old Rafat Amirov. Both men are natives of Azerbaijan, a country that borders Iran and Russia. Federal prosecutors intend to prove that Mr. Omarov and Mr. Amirov, who were overseas and are not American citizens, contracted Mr. Mehdiyev, who was living in the Bronx, to carry out the actual murder.

On Thursday, Mr. Mehdiyev was cross-examined by the defense attorneys for both defendants at the federal courthouse in Lower Manhattan, where the trial began on Monday.  

According to his own testimony, Mr. Mehdiyev came to the United States on a tourist visa and later applied for political asylum, falsely stating that he was being persecuted in his home country Azerbaijan. He proceeded to lead a life of organized crime, engaging in robberies, extortion, kidnappings, arson, attempted check frauds and contract killings, he told the jury.   

Mr. Mehdiye was arrested by law enforcement in July 2022, near Ms. Alinejad’s home, where he had spent days parked outside. He later claimed he had noticed two undercover police cars parked nearby and decided to drive away. When he sped through a stop sign, detectives for the New York Police department pulled him over. The officers found he was driving with a suspended license and searched his car. They obtained a suitcase containing a loaded AK-47 and about 66 rounds of ammunition, as well as a ski mask and rubber gloves.   

On Wednesday, Mr. Mehdiyev testified that he had been there “to kill the journalist.” 

The criminal complaint detailing his July 2022 arrest stated that Mr. Mehdiyev had driven to Ms. Alinejad’s home in a gray Subaru Forester SUV with Illinois plates and stayed in the area for hours. He ordered food to be delivered to the car, and he walked up to the house and tried to look inside its windows, even attempting to open the front door. 

After his arrest, he told officers he had wanted to ask Ms. Alinejad if she would rent him a room, but had changed his mind and decided not to ask.  

Mr. Mehdiyev has pleaded guilty to numerous federal charges in both the Southern and Eastern District of New York, and is cooperating with the government in hope for a lower sentence. 

The two defendants currently on trial, however, have pleaded not guilty to the charges, which include murder-for-hire, conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire, money laundering conspiracy, and possession of a firearm.  Both men were arrested overseas in January 2023 and brought to New York to face trial. Other defendants, who are also listed in the indictment, have not been arrested yet and remain on the loose, likely overseas. 

The defense was trying to convince the jury – as is often the case in criminal trials where a prosecution witness is testifying as part of a plea deal – that Mr. Mehdiyev is lying about their clients in order to get a lighter sentence. Ms. Fast spent almost the entire day on Thursday questioning Mr. Mehdiyev, exposing to the jury his extensive rap sheet of criminal activities, and his countless lies to her client and numerous other people with whom he was acquainted. 

According to Mr. Mehdiyev’s testimony, Mr. Omarov had said the two would split $160,000 for the assassination job on Ms. Alinejad. But Mr. Mehdiyev, as it turned out, had lied to Mr. Omarov about what he was doing at her house. For example, he told Mr. Omarov that he had both sides of the house, the front and the backyard, “blocked,” meaning there was someone there ready to shoot the journalist as soon as she would come outside.  

“But you didn’t have the house blocked from both sides?” Ms. Fast asked. 

“No, miss,” the witness answered calmly. 

She told the jury that Mr. Mehdiyev had also said he would bring a girl to the house and have her knock on the door and tell Ms. Alinejad she liked the flowers in her front yard in order to lure the target outside, so Mr. Mehdiyev could shoot her.  

“But the girl was not coming?” Ms. Fast went on. 

“No, miss,” the witness said. 

Indeed, Mr. Mehdiyev also lied to other people, such as a man referred to as Levent, whose house he was in fact living in, and who was one of the owners of Peppinos Pizza in the Bronx, where Mr. Mehdiyev had been employed for a short period of time. 

“You lived with him,” the defense attorney told the jury, “he was not charging you rent … You worked at his restaurant … You went on vacation with him … To Las Vegas, to California, to Miami… And while you were in California with Levent, you had Levent’s business partner robbed.” Ms. Fast described in detail how Mr. Mehdiyev orchestrated a robbery of Levent’s business partner at the pizzeria in Brooklyn. And later, while in jail, he tried to extort money from Levent by threatening to tell the government that his wife was involved in sex-trafficking at her massage parlor and that Levent had made millions from bank fraud. 

“You tried to extort money from Levent for not disclosing to the government information about him,” Ms. Fast pressed. 

“Yes, miss.” The witness said. 

Ms. Fast’s colleague, defense attorney Michael Perkins, had described Mr. Mehdiyev in his opening statement as “a witness you wouldn’t buy a used car from.”

“Why did you tell Mr. Omarov that your mother was dead?” Ms. Fast asked later.      

“I had a lot of enemies,” Mr. Mehdiyev explained. 

“You did not want anyone hurting your family, is that correct?” Ms. Fast added.  

“Yes, miss,” the mobster said. 

The defense attorney made the jury aware that Mr.Mehdiyev had collected money from people he was acquainted with for his mother’s fictional funeral, and prior to that even asked for money for her cancer treatment.    

“Does your mother have cancer?” Ms. Fast asked.  

“No,” the witness replied calmly.

Ms. Fast told the jury that the government had brought Mr. Mehdiyev’s mother, father and brother to America as part of his plea agreement, and that prosecutors could make a so-called 5K motion to the court, which would allow the judge to give Mr. Mehdiyev a sentence lower than the required minimum. He currently faces at least fifteen years in prison.  

“Fifteen years is like half your life? The defense attorney noted. 

“God knows how long I will live,” Mr.Mehdiyev pondered.  

“Do you wanna live like a caged animal for the rest of your life?” Ms. Fast asked. 

“No, miss,” he said.  

But when Assistant U.S. Attorney Jacob Gutwillig examined his witness on redirect, he asked if Mr. Mehdiyev had outlined all his crimes with the government, which he confirmed. 

“And what was the most important thing you need to do for the cooperation agreement?” Mr. Gutwillig asked. 

“Tell the truth or nothing,” Mr.Mehdiyev replied. 

But how relevant is Mr. Mehdiyev’s long history of lying?  Looming over the case is a much graver question with geopolitical consequences: did the Iranian government indeed order the murder of an American citizen to take place on American soil? That question, so far, has yet to be addressed at the trial. The Iranian government has denied any involvement in any plot to take Ms. Alinejad’s life. 

The trial continues on Friday. Ms. Alinejad is expected to testify, possibly as soon as next week.