Two members of an Eastern European criminal organization were “hired guns for the government of Iran” in a plot to assassinate an Iran-born journalist at her New York City residence three years ago, a prosecutor told a federal jury in an opening statement on Tuesday at the start of a trial for the men.

Prosecutors say figures in Tehran hired two men to kill Masih Alinejad, a journalist who had criticized Iran’s head scarf laws.

The trial of two men charged in an alleged Iranian government-sponsored murder-for-hire plot that targeted a prominent Iranian journalist and human rights activist has begun with jury selection