US announces charges in Iranian plot to assassinate Trump
· RTE.ieUS prosecutors announced charges in an alleged Iranian plot to assassinate former president Donald Trump and a prominent dissident Iranian-American journalist.
The foiled assassination plot on Mr Trump was allegedly directed by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to avenge the death of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani, who was killed in 2020 in a US strike ordered by then-president Trump, the US Justice Department said.
Farhad Shakeri, a 51-year-old Afghan national who is believed to be in Iran, was "tasked" by the IRGC with providing a plan to kill Mr Trump, the department said in a statement.
Mr Shakeri and two other men, Carlisle Rivera, 49, and Jonathon Loadholt, 36, both of New York, were charged separately with plotting to kill an Iranian-American dissident in New York.
Mr Rivera and Mr Loadholt are both in US custody and made a court appearance in New York.
"The charges announced today expose Iran's continued brazen attempts to target US citizens, including President-elect Donald Trump, other government leaders and dissidents who criticise the regime in Tehran," FBI Director Christopher Wray said.
Mr 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.
The US Justice Department said Mr Shakeri 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 supply the IRGC with operatives to conduct surveillance and assassinations of IRGC targets," the Justice Department said.
It said Mr Loadholt and Mr Rivera, at Mr Shakeri's direction, spent months conducting surveillance on a US citizen of Iranian origin who is an outspoken critic of the Iranian regime and has been the target of multiple prior kidnapping and murder plots.
'Money's not an issue'
According to the criminal complaint against Mr Shakeri, he allegedly disclosed the plot to assassinate Mr Trump in telephone conversations with FBI agents in recent months.
Mr Shakeri held the conversations with FBI agents because he was hoping to obtain a sentence reduction for a person who is imprisoned in the United States, it said.
The Afghan national told the FBI he was approached by an IRGC official in September about organising the assassination of Mr Trump.
He allegedly told the IRGC official it would cost a "huge" amount of money, to which the official responded:
"Money's not an issue."
On 7 October, Mr Shakeri said he was asked to come up with a plan to kill Mr Trump within seven days.
The IRGC official allegedly said that if Mr Shakeri was unable to come up with a plan in that timeframe, the IRGC would seek to kill Mr Trump after the election because it predicted he would lose and it would be easier to assassinate him after the vote.
The United States has repeatedly accused Iran of seeking to assassinate US officials in retaliation for the killing of Mr Soleimani.
Iran has rejected the accusations.