Gangster recalls managing pizza shop while plotting kidnapping in murder-for-hire of Iranian journalist

MANHATTAN (CN) — An Azerbaijani mobster who admitted to trying to kill Iranian journalist Masih Alinejad outside of her Brooklyn home in 2022 managed a New York pizza shop while he lived his life of crime, he testified Thursday.

Khalid Mehdiyev was born in Azerbaijan but fled to the United States in 2017 due to “beef” with rival gangsters. An admitted member of the Russian organized crime group “Thieves in Law,” Mehdiyev told jurors earlier this week that he was the triggerman in a thwarted Iranian-backed plot to murder Alinejad on United States soil.

The Yonkers-based 27-year-old is testifying against two men who, he said, put him up to the attempted killing: Rafat Amirov and Polad Omarov, who were supposedly paid $500,000 by the Iranian government to kill Alinejad for her women’s rights activism.

On Thursday, Mehdiyev faced a grueling cross-examination that focused on his extensive criminal past; he told the court he once tried to orchestrate a kidnapping in Ukraine while simultaneously managing a pizza shop called Peppino’s.

“As you’re coordinating an international kidnapping, you’re also working at a pizza shop?” asked a bewildered Elena Fast, Omarov’s defense attorney.

“That’s correct,” Mehdiyev said.

The would-be hitman agreed with Fast’s assertion that “doing both at the same time” is a “big responsibility.” But he did so to impress his gang leaders abroad in hopes of one day becoming a “vor,” or a boss.

Mehdiyev copped to numerous other crimes throughout his testimony, including committing arson against the same restaurant three times in a row to extort its owner, shooting up a businessman’s car and stabbing a member of a rival Russian criminal group.

Even his arrest for Alinejad’s attempted killing didn’t stop Mehdiyev’s criminal activity. He testified Thursday that he had booze and a cell phone smuggled into his jail cell. And a game of jailhouse cards turned ugly when Mehdiyev “choked and punched” a fellow inmate named “Ace” — Mehdiyev had previously claimed to be a talented gambler who “never lost” a game of cards.

Still, Mehdiyev insisted on Thursday that he’d never killed anyone before. He had stabbed people, he said, but they all survived. He had orchestrated killings from afar, but apparently was never the one to make them happen.

“I didn’t kill nobody, sir,” Mehdiyev told Michael Martin, Amirov’s defense attorney.

But Mehdiyev said that he tried on July 29, 2022, when he was parked outside of Alinejad’s Brooklyn home in an SUV after about a week of surveilling the property. Mehdiyev said he took videos of him walking up to Alinejad’s porch, then sent the clips to Omarov as proof that he was within striking distance.

Omarov had promised Mehdiyev $30,000 for the hit.

But Mehdiyev’s behavior was flagged to local police, who sent two undercover squad cars to keep an eye on the Azerbaijani that day in July. Mehdiyev blew a stop sign, giving police reason to pull him over and eventually arrest him for driving with an expired license. When they searched his car, they recovered a loaded AK-47, 66 rounds of ammunition and a ski mask.

Facing life in prison for the murder plot, Mehdiyev cooperated with authorities to testify against Amirov and Omarov, who he said commissioned him for the killing and acted as middlemen between him and the government of Iran. Mehdiyev said Thursday that it was Amirov who was to get the money from the Iranians, then Omarov who was to pay him the $30,000 cut.

When asked if he knew where that money came from, he said: “It was coming from Rafat [Amirov] from Iran government.”

Earlier this week, the defense attorneys primed the jury not to trust the word of Mehdiyev, who they said was an admitted criminal and regular liar. Michael Perkins, an attorney for Omarov, called Mehdiyev “a witness you wouldn’t buy a used car from.”

Even with his cooperation agreement, Mehdiyev still faces a maximum of life in prison after pleading guilty to crimes including illegal possession of a firearm, attempted murder, bank fraud, money laundering and RICO in two federal jurisdictions. He faces a mandatory minimum of 15 years in prison total.

Prosecutors say that Alinejad, a prolific Irani journalist-turned-exile, has been targeted by the Middle Eastern nation’s government for over a decade.

Alinejad is expected to testify next week about the social media campaign she spearheaded to protest Iran’s mandatory hijab laws. That campaign “enraged the regime” and resulted in it “desperately” wanting her dead, according to the opening statement of Assistant U.S. Attorney Jacob Gutwillig.

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