The United States has filed charges against a man believed to be based in Iran, in connection with an alleged plot ordered by Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) to kill a man Donald Trump.
In a statement on Friday (local time), the Justice Department said the man, Farhad Shakeri, had informed law enforcement that he was tasked with devising a plan to kill Trump, the ministry said.
Details of the plot were revealed in a criminal complaint unsealed on Friday (local time).
The complaint alleges that Shakeri was instructed in September to “put aside his other efforts on behalf of the IRGC and concentrate on surveilling and ultimately killing” Trump.
It goes on to say that during a meeting with an IRGC official in early October, Shakeri was instructed to “deliver a plan to assassinate Trump within seven days.”
Shakeri reportedly told police he had no plans to formulate a plan to kill Trump within the IRGC's timeline.
The department described Shakeri, 51, as an IRGC asset living in Tehran.
It says Shakeri, an Afghan citizen, immigrated to the United States as a child and was deported in or around 2008 following a theft conviction after serving 14 years in prison.
The complaint alleges that Shakeri also told investigators he was tasked with plotting the murders of two Jewish-American people in New York and Israeli tourists in Sri Lanka.
Shakeri has not been arrested and is believed to be in Iran, prosecutors said.
Men arrested in New York
The Justice Department also charged two men, Carlisle Rivera and Jonathan Loadholt, who were allegedly recruited by Shakeri to kill a U.S. citizen of Iranian descent in New York.
The complaint alleges that Shakeri was targeted on behalf of the IRGC by an “Iranian-American journalist, author and political activist, and an outspoken critic of the Iranian regime's human rights abuses and corruption.”
It says Shakeri promised a $100,000 payment to the two men.
US Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement on Friday that there are “few actors in the world that pose as serious a threat to the national security of the United States” as Iran. Source: AAP, AP / José Luis Magana
Prosecutors did not identify the target, but it matched the description given by Masih Alinejad, a journalist and activist who has criticized Iran's head covering laws for women.
In 2021, four Iranians were charged in connection with a plot to kidnap her, and in 2022 a man was arrested outside her home with a gun.
Rivera and Loadholt have both been arrested pending trial. Their attorneys did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Assassination attempts on Trump
There have been two suspected assassination attempts on Donald Trump in the US this year. In July, Trump was grazed in the ear by 20-year-old gunman Thomas Crooks during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania.
One rally counselor was killed in the gunfire, and Crooks was shot and killed by a Secret Service sniper.
In September, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said this was the case while playing golf at his course in Florida.
Law enforcement officials said Secret Service agents spotted and shot a gunman in some bushes near the property line, who dropped an AK-47-style assault rifle and was arrested after fleeing the scene.
Trump was not harmed during the incident.
The suspect, 58-year-old Ryan Wesley Routh, was indicted on five federal charges, to which he has pleaded not guilty.
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