Iranian Journalist Masih Alinejad Recounts Chilling Encounter with Alleged Hitman Outside Her Brooklyn Home

Edited by: Fern Sidman

In a gripping and emotionally charged testimony delivered Tuesday in Manhattan federal court, Iranian-American journalist and human rights activist Masih Alinejad relived the terrifying moment she unwittingly came face-to-face with the man allegedly sent to assassinate her. The testimony, as reported in detail by The New York Post, revealed not only the disturbing proximity of the alleged murder attempt but also the surreal, almost cinematic way the encounter unfolded — against the backdrop of a quiet Brooklyn garden blooming with sunflowers and vegetables.

Alinejad, a prominent critic of the Iranian regime and a self-described women’s rights advocate, has long lived under the shadow of threats and surveillance since fleeing Iran in 2009. But even for someone used to intimidation, the encounter on July 28, 2022, was deeply unsettling.

According to the information provided in The New York Post report, Alinejad had just returned from a trip to San Francisco and was preparing to leave for Connecticut. With a friend by her side, she headed into the backyard of her Flatbush home to gather fresh produce from her garden — tomatoes, basil, cucumbers — when she spotted a man watching her from the driveway.

“I was with a friend, and I went to my backyard garden to prepare for [another] trip to Connecticut,” she testified. “I just had all the tomatoes, basil, cucumbers in my hands… I saw the guy — the big guy.”

The man she noticed was 27-year-old Khalid Mehdiyev — later identified as a self-professed Russian mob associate and alleged contract killer, as was indicated in The New York Post report. But in that moment, Alinejad, despite a nagging sense of unease, assumed he was simply another passerby admiring her well-tended garden.

“He had a phone in his hand… I saw he was talking,” she said, suggesting that she initially believed he might be trying to speak to her. As The New York Post report noted, Mehdiyev’s demeanor was ambiguous — casual enough to deflect suspicion, yet invasive enough to leave Alinejad unsettled.

But it was the next moment that would burn itself into her memory.

“I walked inside, and I forgot the key, so I went to get it from the front door,” Alinejad said. “He was like, in the sunflowers, staring into my eyes.”

The encounter became suddenly and eerily intimate. “Then I got really panicked,” she told the jury, describing how something instinctively told her that this was no ordinary neighborhood interaction. Still, she dismissed the concern — momentarily — chalking it up to a harmless onlooker who, perhaps, was merely captivated by her sunflower patch.

“I thought maybe he’s just taking pictures of my beautiful sunflowers,” she recalled, as quoted by The New York Post.

But Alinejad’s instincts were tragically right. That same day, Mehdiyev was apprehended by local authorities in Brooklyn. Inside his vehicle: a loaded AK-47 assault rifle and a ski mask — ominous indicators of a plan that was anything but benign.

As The New York Post reported, Mehdiyev — who worked at a pizza place while allegedly moonlighting as a mob enforcer — was accused of being a hired hitman in a brazen murder-for-hire scheme. According to prosecutors, Mehdiyev had been recruited by two Azerbaijan nationals, Rafat Amirov and Polad Omarov, to assassinate Alinejad on behalf of foreign interests hostile to her activism.

The chilling plot, which federal officials believe was orchestrated with the backing of hostile foreign operatives, marks yet another attempt by overseas networks to silence dissenters living on U.S. soil — a tactic increasingly used by authoritarian regimes to extend their reach across borders.

The 2022 plot was not the first time Masih Alinejad’s life has been in peril. As The New York Post report highlighted, a year before the foiled assassination attempt, U.S. authorities unsealed charges against an Iranian intelligence official and three other operatives who had allegedly planned to kidnap Alinejad and forcibly repatriate her to Iran. That effort, too, was disrupted by American law enforcement.

Alinejad has built a prominent platform, both in the U.S. and internationally, exposing human rights abuses in Iran and advocating for gender equality. Her activism has earned her global recognition — and, tragically, made her the focus of repeated efforts to silence her through violence or coercion.

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this latest plot is its quiet intimacy — a confrontation not in the shadows of a dark alley, but in the daylight serenity of a Brooklyn backyard. “He was staring into my eyes,” Alinejad emphasized — a phrase that echoed throughout the courtroom as she recounted what might have been the last moments of her life had the plot not unraveled in time.

The criminal duo, currently on trial in a Manhattan federal court, face charges of murder-for-hire and attempted murder in aid of racketeering — charges that, if upheld, could result in decades behind bars. According to The New York Post report, both men are accused of commissioning a hit against Alinejad as part of a transnational scheme orchestrated by Iranian interests, which has drawn intense scrutiny from U.S. federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

The assassination plot collapsed in spectacularly clumsy fashion, as The New York Post chronicled. The plan, which allegedly cost Iranian handlers approximately $500,000, was entrusted to Mehdiyev who had links to Amirov and Omarov through a criminal gang from their shared home country.

Despite the serious nature of his assignment, Mehdiyev’s behavior was anything but covert. According to testimony and court documents cited by The New York Post, Mehdiyev camped outside Alinejad’s Brooklyn residence in a Subaru Forester with Illinois plates, making a series of increasingly suspicious blunders. He reportedly tried to open the door to her home, ordered food to his vehicle while surveilling her property, and eventually ran a stop sign — a move that led to his arrest by police already trailing him.

Inside his vehicle, authorities discovered a loaded AK-47-style assault rifle with a round in the chamber, along with a ski mask. As reported by The New York Post, Mehdiyev later admitted in court that he had every intention of using both to murder the journalist.

For Alinejad, these repeated attempts on her life have become grimly familiar — but they’ve also deepened her resolve. “The Iranian government’s repeated attempts to kill me have made me more determined to give voice to powerful women inside Iran who are facing the same killers every single day,” she said, as quoted by The New York Post.

The implications of this case, as The New York Post has reported, go far beyond one assassination plot. It is a stark warning about the escalation of transnational repression — the use of hired enforcers, proxies, and intimidation tactics to hunt down dissidents living in exile. It is a reminder that authoritarian regimes are increasingly willing to breach international boundaries to silence opposition.

That this threat played out in the flower-filled backyard of a Brooklyn home — with a loaded rifle lying just feet from a civilian target — is a deeply unsettling testament to how dangerously close foreign violence can come to American soil.