The Czech Republic says it has extradited a man indicted in the United States for plotting the murder of a prominent critic of the Islamic Republic.
Polad Omarov was handed to representatives of US authorities at Prague’s international airport on February 21 after the suspect had exhausted all options of appeal, according to the Czech Justice Ministry.
Omarov was arrested in the Czech Republic in January 2023.
US prosecutors have said he was a resident of the Czech Republic and Slovenia. The Czech Justice Ministry said he was a citizen of Georgia.
Omarov, along with two other suspects named Rafat Amirov and Khalid Mehdiyev, were charged with murder-for-hire and money laundering for their roles in the Tehran-backed assassination attempt of a US citizen of Iranian origin who lived in Brooklyn, New York.
US prosecutors did not name the alleged victim, but Mehdiyev was arrested in New York in 2022 for having a rifle outside the Brooklyn home of journalist Masih Alinejad, a US-Iranian outspoken critic of the Islamic Republic.
US prosecutors in 2021 also charged four Iranians alleged to be intelligence operatives for Tehran with plotting to kidnap Alinejad.
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