Man extradited to the US over suspected Iranian plot to kill activist

Czech authorities on Wednesday handed over to the United States a man accused of participating in a plot hatched in Iran to kill Masih Alinejad, a Brooklyn-based American human rights activist and journalist and a sharp critic of Iran's oppression of women. U.S. officials said. .

The man, Polad Omarov, 39, was handed over to US government representatives at Prague's Vaclav Havel Airport on Wednesday morning. Reuters reported this, citing a statement from the Czech Ministry of Justice. He was arrested in the Czech Republic in January 2023.

A federal indictment unsealed in New York last year said that Mr. Omarov and three co-conspirators were part of an Eastern European criminal organization known to its members as Thieves-in-Law, which has ties to Iran and was charged with the murder in 2022. from Mrs. Alinejad.

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan have said that Mr. Omarov, a Georgian citizen, had a leadership role in the organization and lived in Eastern Europe.

“This case will be over today, brother,” Mr. Omarov said in a message to one of his co-conspirators in July 2022, shortly before another conspirator, Khalid Mehdiyev, an Azerbaijani man living in Yonkers, New York, was found it. with a loaded AK-47-style assault rifle outside Ms. Alinejad's home, the complaint said. “I told them to make me a birthday present,” Mr. Omarov wrote.

At the time, Mr. Mehdiyev, at the direction of Mr. Omarov and another man, Rafat Amirov, “prepared at short notice to carry out the attack” on Ms. Alinejad, the indictment said.

Ms. Alinejad, in a message posted on X thanked US law enforcement agencies “for their vigilance” on Wednesday morning.

“I am happy first of all because I have been given a second life and I rejoice at the humiliation of the Islamic Republic,” Ms. Alinejad wrote, adding: “My adopted country has once again saved me from the murderous regime of my native country Iran. ”

Mr. Omarov, Mr. Amirov and Mr. Mehdiyev are all now being tried in Federal District Court in Manhattan. Mr. Amirov and Mr. Mehdiyev have pleaded not guilty. A fourth man, Zialat Mamedov, has also been charged in the alleged plot; Prosecutors said last May that he was in custody in the Czech Republic.

“I look forward to testifying at their trial,” Ms. Alinejad wrote.

FBI Director Christopher A. Wray met with Czech officials in Prague on Wednesday.

“With today's extradition of Omarov, we have taken an important step forward to hold Iranian actors accountable for their brazen plot to kill an American citizen on American soil,” Mr. Wray said in a statement, thanking Czech officials .

Mr. Omarov's extradition comes nearly three years after the FBI and prosecutors in the Southern District of New York said they had unraveled a plot to kidnap Ms. Alinejad and take her to Iran for a likely execution.

U.S. authorities announced charges against four Iranians in connection with the alleged kidnapping plan, including one man described as an intelligence official and others described as intelligence officials; They remain on the run, the government says.