PS752 case advances as Iran's legal challenge fails

Supervising special agent Justin Tuerack, who oversees the Iran squad at the bureau, took to the stand Monday, detailing the investigation into digital communications of the suspects.

Tuerack said he analyzed the meta data and IP addresses belonging to the cloud, Whats App, Apple IDs and Google Accounts of defendants Rafat Amirov, Polad Omarov and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Ruhollah Bazghandi and members of his Iran-based network - Haj Taher, Hossein Sedighi and Seyed Mohammad Forouzan.

Federal prosecutors said Bazghandi orchestrated the alleged 2022 plot to kill the journalist in Brooklyn. Bazghandi, the brigadier general in the IRGC was previously chief of the Revolutionary Guard's counterintelligence department.

Orders from Iran to assassinate Alinejad

Khaled Mehdiyev, who pleaded guilty to attempting to assassinate Alinejad, testified that he received direct orders from fellow mobsters Amirov and Omarov. These men were acting on instructions from a network led by Bazghandi, according to prosecutors.

Mehdiyev, the would-be assassin, admitted in court that he had been stalking Alinejad outside her Brooklyn home in 2022 with one objective: “Shoot the journalist, kill the journalist.”

The prosecution claims that the Iranian government paid Amirov and Omarov $500,000 to orchestrate the assassination in retaliation for Alinejad’s human rights activism.

The plot was thwarted on July 28, 2022 when police arrested Mehdiyev of Yonkers, New York, as he passed a stop sign driving away from Alinejad’s house.

Digital evidence

Now web searches, text messages, calls and images stored on the cloud of the suspects is revealing the web of connections between the mobsters and Iran.

FBI-submitted evidence included WhatsApp messages from accounts allegedly belonging to Omarov and Amirov. These texts documented their communications with Mehdiyev, Bazghandi, and the IRGC network regarding the assassination attempt.

On July 23, 2022, Omarov sent a chilling message to Amirov: "we blocked it from both sides, it will be a show once she/he steps out of the house," according to FBI metadata evidence submitted in court.

Amirov's IP address showed him as being located in Iran's Western province of Azerbaijan, according to Tuerack at the time. “God willing we will have good news." he wrote back to Omarov.

A few days later on July 27, 2022 Omarov texted Amirov that Mehdiyev's hit on Alinejad would be his birthday gift, which is July 30 according to Omarov's passport.

"I told him to make this a birthday present for me," Omarov text message read said the FBI.

The conversation between the two would-be assassins reflects Mehdiyev's arrest. arrested.

“The fat one did not get in touch” Amirov texted Omarov in early August, apparently referring to Mahdiyev. "Damn him. I don’t want him to cause trouble,” Omarov texted back.

Rafat the Thief

After Mehdiyev’s arrest in July 2022, google searches from the IRGC network show the men searching “Rafat the Thief”, testified Tuerack.

Notably, this search occurred before any public knowledge of Amirov’s alleged involvement in the plot, a detail federal prosecutors emphasized.

Google map searches of Alinejad home, the pharmacy she used, photos and google searches of her husband Kambiz Foroohar were also made from the accounts affiliated with the IRGC network.

On September 5, 2022, a member of Bazghandi team, Sadighi, sent fellow member Haj Taher a message allegedly addressed to yet another alleged member of their network named Forouzan: "this is addressed to you, your boss and the mafia."

There were youtube searches "who wants to kidnap Masih Alinejad" coming from their work, said the FBI.

Forouzan,, according to Tuerack had three entries to describe a phone number allegedly belonging to Amirov: brotherhood, Rome and Rome/Rafat.

From Sept 14, 2022 - to Nov 27, 2022 - Forouzan allegedly contacted Amirov over text 362 times and made 226 calls to each other.

The Bazghandi Network continued to collect information on Alinejad until at least May 2023. The FBI thwarted two plots prior to the attempt to kill Alinejad, one in 2020 and the other in 2021, also by Iranian state agents trying to kidnap the journalist and take her to Iran.

The session, held during the UN Human Rights Council meeting, included discussions on minority rights, state repression, and accountability.

A panel hosted by the Baha’i International Community, the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center, and the Impact Iran coalition examined the systematic targeting of Baha’is. The event featured Mai Sato, the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iran, alongside prominent rights advocates.

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"The interviews with 56 Baha'is with direct experience of persecution offer powerful firsthand accounts that cannot be ignored," Sato said. "The report argues that the Baha'i people of Iran have long been subjected to a systematic process of othering by the state."

The 1979 constitution of the Islamic Republic recognizes only Islam, Christianity, Judaism and Zoroastrianism. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has on several occasions called the Baha'i faith a cult and in a religious fatwa in 2018 forbade contact, including business dealings, with followers of the faith.

Baha'is, who number around 300,000 in Iran, say their rights are systematically violated and they are often harassed, forced to leave their homes and businesses, and are deprived of government jobs and university education.

"Bahai women face intersectional discrimination, persecuted both as women and as a member of a religious minority," Sato said. She cited reports of ten Baha’i women in Isfahan being sentenced to a combined 90 years in prison and stripped of assets.

Speaking at the event, Roya Boroumand, director of the Abdorrahman Boroumand Foundation, addressed broader societal changes.

"The Iranians are secularizing, their distancing themselves from Islam, from religion altogether, or they are converting to Zoroastrianism or Baha’ism or Christianity," she said. "For the theocracy, losing its Muslims is a disaster."

The day concluded with a screening of a documentary presented by rights group Justice for Iran, highlighting the courage of protesters and whistleblowers who exposed atrocities during the November 2019 protests.

It heard testimonies from witnesses, victims, and experts on the Iranian government’s violent crackdown, which resulted in the deaths of at least 1500 protestors and mass arrests.

Azadeh Afsahi, a psychotherapist and human rights advocate, spoke about the dangers of dehumanization. "During the Rwanda genocide, Tutsis were called cockroaches. Under Nazi Germany, Jews were called rats. It happened before and it's happening now," she said. "The Islamic Republic of Iran has used otherization to drive its agenda of violence."

As international attention remains on Iran’s human rights record, rights groups continue to document abuses and call for accountability. "Despite these challenges, the Baha'i community demonstrates remarkable resilience," Sato said.

"Every shot fired by the Houthis will be looked upon, from this point forward, as being a shot fired from the weapons and leadership of IRAN, and IRAN will be held responsible, and suffer the consequences, and those consequences will be dire!" Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

Trump on Saturday ordered large-scale military strikes against dozens of targets in Yemen controlled by Tehran-backed Houthi armed group, saying the attacks aimed at ensuring freedom of navigation through shipping lanes the militants have targeted.

Fresh US air strikes hit Yemen on Monday, the Houthis' Al Masirah TV reported. The Houthi-run health ministry said on Sunday that at least 53 people were killed in the attacks.

At a Pentagon press conference on Monday, lieutenant general Alexus Grynkewich told reporters that military casualties among the Houthis were in the dozens but there were no indications of civilian casualties.

Shortly after Israel's incursion into Gaza triggered by a Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023, the Shi'ite militant group which seized control of much of Yemen started missile and drone strikes against commercial and military vessels in the Red and Arabian Seas.

They described the effort as a blockade in solidarity with the Palestinian people.

Iran and the Houthis have denied close military coordination but weapons experts have linked the Yemeni fighters' advanced arsenal of anti-ship and ballistic missiles to Iranian technology.

US forces have been locked in their most intense naval combat since World War II with the Houthis but have yet to constrain the maritime attacks.

"Let nobody be fooled! The hundreds of attacks being made by Houthi, the sinister mobsters and thugs based in Yemen, who are hated by the Yemeni people, all emanate from, and are created by, IRAN," Trump added.

"Any further attack or retaliation by the 'Houthis' will be met with great force, and there is no guarantee that that force will stop there."

As ceasefires have taken hold pausing combat between Israel and its badly bludgeoned Hamas and Hezbollah militant adversaries, the Houthis have become the vanguard of Tehran's network of armed affiliates in the Middle East.

The Trump administration views their continued harassment of commercial shipping as an obstacle to his fight to bring down prices for US consumers and continued but largely ineffectual targeting of US forces as a nuisance.

"Iran has played “the innocent victim” of rogue terrorists from which they’ve lost control, but they haven’t lost control," Trump said.

"They’re dictating every move, giving them the weapons, supplying them with money and highly sophisticated Military equipment, and even, so-called, “Intelligence.”

Trump this month demanded Iran agree new deal over its nuclear program or face military attack - an overture rejected by Iran's Supreme Leader as bullying.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned Washington would come off worst in any confrontation, insisting that Iran had not been weakened by over a year of direct and proxy conflict with Israel.

Speaking at a meeting on energy distribution and consumption, Pezeshkian stressed the need for equitable energy policies and flexible solutions adapted to regional conditions.

“Addressing energy imbalances should not be confined to a single approach,” he said, advocating for a mix of strategies to optimize distribution and ensure fairness across different provinces.

Iranian officials refer to the shortages in the energy sector as an imbalance.

The president also emphasized public engagement in energy-saving initiatives, suggesting that mosques, health centers, and prominent cultural figures could help promote consumption reforms.

“If we involve people in implementing these decisions, we will overcome many challenges, including energy distribution and consumption management,” he added.

Among other measures, Pezeshkian highlighted the need to modernize heating equipment, ban outdated and inefficient appliances, and expand the use of smart meters in residential areas.

The energy crisis, marked by widespread electricity shortages and gas deficits, has disrupted industries across the country since the past months. Aging infrastructure, international sanctions, and poor management have compounded the problem, leading to the shutdown of approximately 80 power plants.

During the winter, Iran faces a daily shortfall of at least 260 million cubic meters of gas, further straining the electricity supply.

Iran has vast oil and gas reserves, much of which it cannot tap due to US-led sanctions which stall investment and maintenance.

"Security officers met my father and said his arrest would be lifted today on orders of the head of the judiciary," Karroubi's son Hossein Karroubi told Jamaran, a semi-official newspaper linked to Iran's Reformist political faction.

Karroubi's political ally, former Prime Minister Mirhossein Mousavi, would also be released from house arrest in the coming months, he added.

In the 2009 presidential election, which resulted in the controversial re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Karroubi, now 87, and Mousavi, 83, ran on a reformist platform. The outcome sparked mass protests, known as the Green Movement, with demonstrators alleging widespread electoral fraud."

Both were detained in 2011 after taking a leading role in the protests, though they were not put on trial or publicly charged.

Karroubi’s son, however, added that his father had been told that security officers would be present at his home until April 8 to ensure his protection.

Iran's official news agency IRNA also reported on Karroubi's release, but did not refer to Mousavi's case.

Last year, Hossein Karroubi told Ensaf News that his father would refuse release from house arrest while Mousavi remained detained.

Iran's current president, Masoud Pezeshkian, promised during his election campaign to release both politicians.