WASHINGTON: U.S. prosecutors announced charges Friday in an alleged Iranian plot to assassinate former President Donald Trump and a prominent Iranian-American dissident journalist.

The foiled Trump assassination plot was allegedly directed by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to avenge the death of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in 2020 in a U.S. strike ordered by then-President Trump, the Justice Department said. .

Farhad Shakeri, 51, an Afghan national 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.

Tehran calls accusations “totally unfounded”

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 target American citizens, including President-elect Donald Trump, other government leaders, and dissidents critical of the regime in Tehran,” said FBI 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 unfounded.” The Foreign 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 US Department of Justice 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 Justice Department said.

He said Loadholt and Rivera, under Shakeri’s direction, spent months surveilling an Iranian-American citizen who is an outspoken critic of the Iranian government 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. 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 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.

Published in Dawn, November 10, 2024