The Justice Department unveiled criminal charges Friday in a foiled Iranian plot to kill President-elect Donald Trump before this week’s presidential election.
A criminal complaint filed in federal court in Manhattan alleges that an unnamed official in Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard instructed a contact last September to monitor and ultimately assassinate Trump. In October, the complaint says, this person was assigned to develop a plan to kill Trump.
If the man, identified as Farjad Shakeri, was unable to come up with a plan by then, the complaint said, the official told him that Iran would pause its plan until after the presidential election because the official believed Trump would lose and it would be easier to assassinate him. Then she said the complaint.
According to the complaint, two other men were also arrested and charged for their alleged involvement in a “conspiracy to kill an Iranian-American citizen in New York.”
“We have also brought charges and arrested two individuals who we allege were recruited as part of that network to silence and kill an American journalist who was a prominent critic of the regime on American soil,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. .
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The two men are allegedly part of a network of criminal associates created by Shakeri, the criminal complaint says, to provide the IRGC with agents “to conduct surveillance and assassinations of IRGC targets.”
The plot, with the charges revealed just days after Trump defeated Democrat Kamala Harris, reflects what federal officials have described as ongoing efforts by Iran to target US government officials, including Trump, on US soil.
“The charges announced today expose Iran’s continued brazen attempts to target American citizens, including President-elect Donald Trump and other government and opposition leaders who are critical of the regime in Tehran,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said in the statement.
The complaint goes on to allege that the Iranian government is “actively targeting” American citizens and its allies living in countries around the world in order to “conduct attacks, including assault, kidnapping, and murder.” It says this is aimed at suppressing and silencing opponents who criticize the Iranian regime and avenging the killing of Quds Force Commander Qassem Soleimani in January 2020 in a US air strike.
Shakeri, who has not been arrested or located, as well as the two men in custody, are all charged with murder-for-hire, conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire, and conspiracy to launder money. Shakeri also faces charges of conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, conspiring to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, and sanctions against the Iranian government.
—With files from Global News’ Sean Preville
& Edition 2024 The Canadian Press
