A man armed with a loaded AK-47 was arrested on Thursday outside of the Brooklyn home of Iranian dissident journalist Masih Alinejad, according to sources and charging documents.
Khalid Mehdiyev, 23, was found with the assault rifle, a high-capacity magazine and more than $1,000 worth of cash when he was arrested after lurking for two days, according to a federal complaint.
The complaint makes no explicit connection between Mehdiyev and Alinejad but says the accused had focused on an unnamed Brooklyn “residence.”
Law enforcement observed Mehdiyev sitting in a gray Subaru Forester SUV with an Illinois license plate for several hours on Wednesday and Thursday. Feds said he ordered food to his car and looked inside of the windows and attempted to open the front door of the residence he was parked outside of, the complaint says.
NYPD officers stopped Mehdiyev on Thursday after he rolled through a stop sign. Cops found he was driving without a license and he was placed under arrest.
Police later searched his vehicle and found the loaded AK-47 with multiple magazines, additional rounds of ammunition and a suitcase full of cash. Two other different license plates were also found.
Mehdiyev told police he had been staying in Yonkers, but the rent was too high there and he was looking for a new place to live in the Brooklyn neighborhood. He said he had tried to open the front door of the residence so he could knock on an inside door to ask if he could rent a room.
He initially told officers he had borrowed the car and he didn’t know anything about the gun and said the suitcase was not his.
Later, he confessed that the gun was his and he had been in Brooklyn “because he was looking for someone,” according to the complaint.
scheme to smuggle her back into Iran silence her criticism of human rights abuses in the Islamic Republic. Four Iranian operatives were arrested by federal agents.
The plan to kidnap Alinejad in the US allegedly included hiring private investigators to conduct multiple days of surveillance during which she and members of her household were photographed and recorded on video at and around her Brooklyn home.
Alinejad could not be reached for comment by The Post on Saturday.
