A man was arrested Friday after he was found with a loaded AK-47 assault rifle outside the Brooklyn home of an Iranian-American journalist who was the target of one international kidnapping plot allegedly coordinated by an Iranian intelligence network last year, according to the journalist, a court document and a person briefed on the matter.
Journalist Masih Alinejad, 45, has been outspoken in criticizing the Iranian government, written two years ago that Iranian officials had launched a social media campaign calling for her abduction. In an unsealed federal indictment a year ago in Manhattan, four Iranians were charged with conspiring to kidnap her and forcibly return her to Iran.
In the new case, law enforcement observed a man, Khalid Mehdiyev, behaving suspiciously near Alinejad’s home more than two days last week, according to a criminal complaint filed with the Court. Federal District Court in Manhattan on Friday.
On Thursday morning, the lawsuit says, Mehdiyev arrived outside her home in a gray Subaru Forester SUV with Illinois license plates and stayed in the vicinity for several hours. During that time, he ordered food to be delivered to his vehicle, approached the mansion, tried to look inside a window and attempted to open the front door, the lawsuit said.
That afternoon, he left and was stopped by New York City police after disobeying a stop sign. He was arrested after police determined he was driving without a license and his license was suspended, the lawsuit said.
Police found a suitcase in the back seat of the vehicle, containing an AK-47 with a faded serial number, the lawsuit said. The rifle is loaded with one cartridge in the chamber and an accompanying magazine, along with a second, separate magazine and approximately 66 rounds. The rifle bore markings that it was made by Norinco, a Chinese state-owned manufacturer of firearms and military supplies.
The complaint does not identify Alinejad, a US citizen, but she said in a phone interview Sunday that she was told by authorities that the man in question was outside her home. Teacher. She also said she had home security footage showing him outside her front door.
“I came here in America to be safe,” she said. “First, they are trying to kidnap me. And now I see a man with a loaded gun trying to get into my house. I mean, it’s shocking.”
Alinejad said she and her family have moved to a safe location.
Mr. Mehdiyev, who was charged with possession of a gun with an erased serial number, was ordered by a federal judge to be held without binding. Mr. Mehdiyev’s lawyer, Stephanie Carvlin, declined to comment. The US attorney’s office also declined to comment.
The indictment made public in July 2021 in the kidnapping plot says that an Iranian official and a network of intelligence special forces used private investigators to survey, photograph and video Ms. Alinejad. and members of her family. The surveillance included a live, high-definition video feed showing her home, prosecutors said.
Audrey Strauss, a US attorney in Manhattan at the time, said that a US citizen living in the US “must be able to campaign for human rights without being targeted by foreign intelligence agents”.
Alinejad, in an interview last year with The New York Times, said she was shocked to learn the full details of the alleged plot to kidnap the Iranians.
“It shows they’re not afraid of America – they’re afraid of me,” she later said. “Otherwise, they wouldn’t have sent anyone here to kidnap me.”
The lawsuit against Mehdiyev, signed by an FBI agent, says that inside the suitcase, authorities also found $1,100 in a $100 bill, two license plates from other states with different numbers and New York State study permit showing an address in Yonkers where Mr. Mehdiyev lived.
The complaint says that in the Brooklyn police precinct where Mr. Mehdiyev was arrested, he gave up his Miranda rights and told agents he was in Brooklyn looking for a new apartment because his rent was too high, according to the petition.
He said he tried to open the mansion’s exterior door to knock on the inside and ask if the occupants would rent a room to him, but he changed his mind thinking someone might sleeping, the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit states that, without being asked about the AK-47 found in the vehicle, he volunteered that he knew nothing about a gun and insisted the suitcase was not his.
Mehdiyev then asked to speak with the agents again. He said that the AK-47 was his and that he was in Brooklyn because he was looking for someone. He then asked for an attorney and declined to say more, the lawsuit said.
