By LARRY NEUMEISTER, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — Iranian American journalist and assassination target Masih Alinejad won applause in a New York City federal courtroom Wednesday as two purported Russian mobsters were each sentenced to 25 years behind bars for hiring a hitman to kill her at her Brooklyn home three years ago on behalf of the Iranian government.

“I crossed an ocean to come to America and have a normal life and I don’t have a normal life,” she said just before Judge Colleen McMahon announced the sentences in Manhattan federal court for Rafat Amirov, 46, and Polad Omarov , 41.

“I’m a brave woman. I’m a strong woman. They couldn’t break me. But they brought fear to my life. These criminals turned my life upside down,” she said as she spoke at a lectern near the men

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