(UPDATE) WASHINGTON, C.C. – US prosecutors on Friday announced charges in an alleged Iranian plot to assassinate Donald Trump and a prominent Iranian-American dissident journalist.

The foiled Trump assassination plot was allegedly directed by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to avenge the death of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in January 2020 in a US strike ordered by the then-president, it said. the Department of Justice.

GOOD MOOD President-elect Donald Trump dances after speaking at an election night viewing party in West Palm Beach, Florida, Nov. 6, 2024. AP PHOTO

Farhad Shakeri, 51, an Afghan believed to be in Iran, was “tasked” by the IRGC to provide a plan to kill Trump, the department said in a statement.

Shakeri and two other men — Carlisle Rivera, 49, and Jonathon Loadholt, 36, both of New York — were separately charged with plotting to kill an Iranian-American dissident in New York.

Rivera and Loadholt are in US custody and appeared in court in New York on Thursday.

“The charges announced today expose Iran’s continued brazen attempts to attack American citizens, including President-elect Donald Trump, other government leaders and dissidents critical of the regime in Tehran,” said Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Christopher Wray. .

Trump, who defeated Vice President Kamala Harris in Tuesday’s US presidential election, faced two other separate assassination attempts this year, including a shooting at a campaign rally when a bullet grazed his ear.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry on Saturday called accusations that Tehran was behind a plot against Trump “totally baseless.”

The ministry “rejects allegations that Iran is involved in an assassination attempt against current or former US officials,” spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said in a statement.

‘Network of criminal associates’

The Justice Department described suspect Shakeri as an “IRGC asset residing in Tehran.”

He said he immigrated to the United States as a child and was deported around 2008 after serving 14 years in prison for robbery.

“In recent months, Shakeri has used a network of criminal associates he met in prison in the United States to provide the IRGC with agents to carry out surveillance and assassinations of IRGC targets,” the department said.

He also said Loadholt and Rivera, under Shakeri’s direction, spent months surveilling an Iranian-American citizen who is an outspoken critic of Tehran and has been the target of multiple previous kidnapping and assassination plots.

She was not identified in court documents, but appears to be dissident journalist Masih Alinejad.

In late October, U.S. prosecutors charged a Revolutionary Guard general in connection with a separate plot to assassinate Alinejad, who lives in New York.

“Money is not a problem”

According to the criminal complaint against Shakeri, he allegedly revealed the plot to assassinate Trump in telephone conversations with FBI agents in recent months.

Shakeri held conversations with agents because he hoped to obtain a reduced sentence for a person incarcerated in the United States, he said.

Shakeri told the FBI that an IRGC official approached him in September to arrange Trump’s assassination.

He allegedly told the IRGC official that it would cost a “huge” amount of money, to which the official responded: “Money is not a problem.”

On October 7, Shakeri said he was asked to come up with a plan to kill Trump within seven days.

The IRGC official allegedly said that if Shakeri could not come up with a plan within that time frame, the IRGC would seek to kill Trump after the election because it believed he would lose and that it would be easier to assassinate him after the vote.

The United States has repeatedly accused Iran of attempting to assassinate American officials in retaliation for the killing of Soleimani. Tehran has rejected the accusations.

A Pakistani man with alleged ties to Iran pleaded not guilty in New York earlier this year to charges of trying to hire a hitman to kill a U.S. politician or official.

The State Department has also announced a $20 million reward for information leading to the arrest of the alleged Iranian mastermind behind a plot to assassinate former White House official John Bolton.