Iranian oil exports are buoyant and cannot be halted by stepped-up US sanctions, Iran's Oil Minister Mohsen Paknejad said as Washington sanctioned him personally and expanded curbs on Tehran's crude trade.
Khalid Mehdiyev said one of the defendants in the Russian mob group, Rafat Amirov confessed to him that Iran's government was behind the plot to murder the Iranian-American journalist.
Jacob Gutwillig, a federal prosecutor said in court this week: "The defendants were hired guns for the government of Iran."
Alinejad has been of the strongest and most vocal critics of Tehran's human rights abuses and persecution of women and minorities.
Since she fled Iran in 2009, she has had a target on her back.
“I was trying to get the easy way to kill her," the bearded Mehdiyev confessed in the Manhattan courtroom.
Prosecutors have said Iran’s government offered to pay Amirov, 45, and Omarov, 40, about $500,000.
Amirov and Omarov, both fellow natives of Mehdiyev’s Azerbaijan, are on trial for the murder-for-hire and attempted murder in aid of racketeering. The duo both pleaded not guilty.
Mehdiyev, who said he was paid $30,000 for the failed assassination attempt, is cooperating with the federal government after pleading guilty in an effort to lessen his potential sentence.
Watching and Waiting
Mehdiyev got dangerously close to Alinejad.
He parked outside of Alinejad's Brooklyn home for two days, watching her every move, and even slept in his car, ordering doordash meals to his vehicle.
The self-proclaimed Russian mobster watched and waited for his target.
The would-be assassin told the court he tried to open Alinejad's door, took videos and photos of himself touching her flowers in her front yard to prove to his mobster associates he was getting close to his mission, and asked his mob boss for a bike to conduct more surveillance.
In bone chilling testimony, Mehdiyev said even tried to hire a woman to lure Alinejad outside her home. He said he told the woman that his target owed him money and once she was in plain sight from the door opening, he would take care of the rest and pay her his share.
“I was there to try to kill the journalist,” said Mehdiyev.
He said in court Thursday that he saw Alinejad outside her Brooklyn home in at least on occasion. The shocking revelation made even more significant since Alinejad was already under FBI protection at the time.
But his assassination plans failed with some errors.
Once Alinejad spotted the stranger lurking around her home, peering into her window and wandering around her, she reported him to the FBI.
Mehdiyev ran a stop sign as authorities trailed him, leading to his arrest and the discovery of a loaded Ak-47, with one in the chamber and a ski mask.
The ski mask, he calmly said in court was "to cover my face when I was going to kill the journalist."
A past of kidnappings and murder-for-hire plots
Mehdiyev faced a grueling cross-examination that focused on his extensive criminal past.
Elena Fast, Omarov’s defense attorney, asked if he was ever caught for committing crimes in other parts of the world. He allegedly committed crimes in 7 countries around the world, but has only been convicted in the U.S.
Mehdiyev told the court he once tried to orchestrate a kidnapping in Ukraine as he was also managing a pizza shop called Peppino’s.
His resume included alleged kidnappings, extortion and murder-for-hire plots.
Green Card for an Informant (S Nonimmigrant)
Mehdiyev was born in Azerbaijan and left for the United States in 2017 after fear of rival gangs emerged in his home country.
He said he was offered by one of his mob bosses, known as a Vor in Russian, to run the gang division in the U.S. Mehdiyev said his goal was to one day became a Vor himself, and move up the ranks from his position.
He entered the U.S. on Nov 4, 2017 and later applied for political asylum, claiming that he would be tortured by Azerbaijani authorities. Mehdiyev admitted it was a lie as Fast, Omarov’s defense attorney said he was wanted in Azerbaijan for crime.
As a witness who has agreed to cooperate with the US government Mehdiyev's entire immediate family including his father, mother and brother are living in the United States with a S greencard, provided to informants.
Meantime, Alinejad hasn't seen her family in more than 15 years. Even Alinejad's brother was imprisoned in Iran in an attempt to put pressure on her to cease her activism.
As a witness, Alinejad cannot discuss the case, but posted to X on Wednesday how profoundly grateful she was to US law enforcement for saving her life.
“In a federal court, he admitted he was sent by the Islamic Republic to kill me for the ‘crime’ of speaking out,” Alinejad wrote on X.
"In Dey (January), we broke the record for oil exports in over a decade; we are announcing this news to make our people happy," Paknejad told the Entekhab News Agency shortly before the sanctions announcement on Thursday.
He also said that Iran’s oil exports had remained steady, adding, "In the past few months, we have not seen any drop in crude oil exports."
Paknejad had made similar claims earlier this year, saying in January that Iran had reached a new high in oil exports.
Soon after Paknejad's comments, the US Treasury announced sanctions against him, accusing Iran’s oil ministry of sending billions of dollars to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and other security forces. The move marks a major increase in Washington's efforts to cut off Iran’s oil revenues and force Tehran into talks over its nuclear program.
“The Iranian regime continues to use the proceeds from the nation’s vast oil resources to advance its narrow, alarming self-interests at the expense of the Iranian people,” said Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. "Treasury will fight and disrupt any attempts by the regime to fund its destabilizing activities and further its dangerous agenda."
The sanctions also included entities in China, the main buyer of Iranian oil, and in India accused of helping Iran trade oil through a "shadow fleet" of ships that avoid detection. The US has been trying to block Iran’s secret oil sales and reduce its economic influence.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry also condemned the sanctions on Friday, calling them a "clear violation of international law." Spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said the sanctions showed the US was dishonest about its willingness to negotiate.
Successive rounds of US sanctions on tankers and companies involved in Iran's oil trade are slowing shipments to China, but trade with one of Iran's key allies continues in "dark mode" despite maximum pressure, according to Bloomberg.
Sanctions are affecting the trade by increasing costs and creating logistical hurdles, Bloomberg reported, citing Chinese refinery executives and shipping analysts.
In a separate report on Friday, Bloomberg said that the United States sanctioned Singapore-based Shipload Maritime Pte for its involvement in the Iranian oil trade—the first such case in the city-state. The US Department of State stated on March 13 that the company was penalized for "knowingly engaging in a significant transaction for the transport of petroleum or petroleum products from Iran," related to a ship-to-ship transfer near Indonesia in December.
