US prosecutors announced charges on Friday in connection with an alleged Iranian plot to assassinate former president Donald Trump.
The foiled assassination plot was reportedly directed by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in revenge for the death of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in 2020 in a US strike ordered by then-president Trump, according to the Justice Department.
Farhad Shakeri, 51, believed to be residing in Iran, was allegedly “tasked” by the IRGC on 7 October with providing a plan to assassinate Trump, who defeated Vice President Kamala Harris in Tuesday’s US presidential election, the department’s statement said.
Shakeri and two other men, Carlisle Rivera, 49, and Jonathon Loadholt, 36, both of New York, were also charged separately with plotting to kill a dissident Iranian-American journalist in New York.
Rivera and Loadholt are both in US custody and appeared in court in New York on Thursday, the department reported.
FBI Director Christopher Wray said, “The charges announced today expose Iran’s ongoing attempts to target US citizens, including President-elect Donald Trump, other government leaders, and dissidents who criticise the Tehran regime.”
The Justice Department described Shakeri as an “IRGC asset based in Tehran.” They said he immigrated to the United States as a child but was deported around 2008 after serving 14 years in prison for robbery.
In recent months, Shakeri reportedly used a network of criminal associates from his time in US prison to provide the IRGC with operatives for surveillance and potential assassinations of IRGC targets. Loadholt and Rivera, allegedly following Shakeri’s orders, spent months conducting surveillance on a US citizen of Iranian origin who is an outspoken critic of the Iranian regime and has previously been targeted in assassination plots.
While the targeted journalist was not named, the charges come less than three weeks after a general in the Revolutionary Guards was charged in New York over an alleged plot to assassinate dissident journalist Masih Alinejad, who lives in New York.
The US has repeatedly accused Iran of attempting to assassinate US officials in retaliation for the killing of Soleimani.
Earlier this year, a Pakistani man with alleged ties to Iran pleaded not guilty in New York to charges that he had tried to hire a hitman to kill a US 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.