Iranian citizen tapped to create plan to assassinate former president, DOJ alleges, although he never followed through.
Published On 8 Nov 2024
The United States Department of Justice has unsealed criminal charges against a man allegedly tasked by Iran with “surveilling and plotting to assassinate” Donald Trump before the presidential election.
The criminal complaint filed in federal court in Manhattan on Friday said an agent with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) had instructed an Afghan citizen, Farhad Shakeri, to come up with the plan in October.
However, Shakeri told investigators he did not intend to provide a plan in the timeline requested: Before the election on November 5.
In a statement, Attorney General Merrick Garland said the Justice Department “has charged an asset of the Iranian regime who was tasked by the regime to direct a network of criminal associates to further Iran’s assassination plots against its targets, including President-elect Donald Trump”.
He added, “There are few actors in the world that pose as grave a threat to the national security of the United States as does Iran.”
On Saturday, Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs described the US accusations as “totally unfounded”.
The ministry “rejects allegations that Iran is implicated in an assassination attempt targeting former or current American officials”, spokesman Esmail Baghaei said in a statement.
He called it a “repulsive” plot by Israel and Iranian opposition outside the country “aimed at making US-Iran problems more complicated”, the official IRNA news agency reported.
Similar accusations in the past were rejected by Iran as their “erroneousness” was proved, he said.
Former immigrant deported
The alleged assassination effort was revealed as part of a wider complaint that alleged Shakeri, together with New York City residents Carlisle Rivera and Jonathon Lodholt, had taken part in a separate plot to kill a US journalist who has been a vocal critic of Iran.
The complaint said Rivera and Lodholt had spent months surveilling the journalist, who was not identified, and shared regular updates with Shakeri, who remains at large and is believed to reside in Iran.
According to the Justice Department, Shakeri immigrated to the US as a child and was deported in or a