WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States has charged an Iranian in connection with an alleged plot ordered by Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard Corps to assassinate President-elect Donald Trump, the Justice Department said on Friday.

In a statement, the department said Farhad Shakeri had informed authorities “that he was tasked on October 7, 2024 to provide a plan to kill” Trump, the department said. Shakeri allegedly told authorities that 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 residing in Tehran. He said he immigrated to the United States as a child and was deported around 2008 after a robbery conviction. Shakeri is a fugitive and believed to be in Iran, prosecutors said.

Two New York residents Shakeri had met in prison, Carlisle Rivera and Jonathan Loadholt, have also been charged with helping Shakeri plot the murder of an Iranian-American citizen in New York, described as an outspoken critic of the government. of Iran that had previously been attacked. for murder.

Prosecutors did not identify the target, but he matched the description of Masih Alinejad, a journalist and activist who has criticized Iran’s veil laws for women. Four Iranians were charged in 2021 in connection with a plot to kidnap her, and in 2022 a man was arrested with a rifle outside her home.

Rivera and Loadholt were ordered detained pending trial. His attorneys did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

(Reporting by Katharine Jackson; editing by Rami Ayyub and Alistair Bell)