Masih Alinejad, an Iranian dissident and journalist, testified against two men charged with plotting her assassination on behalf of the Iranian government. During her testimony, she recounted a disturbing encounter with a hitman allegedly hired to kill her. The trial, held in a New York federal courthouse, featured unsettling demonstrations, including showing the jurors an assault rifle confiscated from the suspected assassin's vehicle. Federal prosecutors portrayed the Iranian regime as having a vested interest in silencing Alinejad due to her vocal criticism of their policies, particularly regarding women's rights and mandatory hijab laws.
You can put that thing down now," the presiding district judge, Colleen McMahon, told a detective, who was on the witness stand before Ms. Alinejad testified.
It was the second time during the trial, currently underway at a federal courthouse in Lower Manhattan, that prosecutors showed the intimidatingly long weapon to the jurors.
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