Three people have been charged in connection with a series of alleged Iran-linked assassination plots, with one of them accused of plotting to assassinate the president-elect. Donald Trumpand others targeted an Iranian-American activist and two Jewish Americans living in New York, according to a criminal complaint unsealed in New York on Friday.
Farhad Shakeri, Carlisle Rivera and Jonathan Loadholt are charged with murder for hire the US Department of Justice. Rivera and Loadholt have been arrested, while Shakeri, described by the FBI as an “asset” of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, is believed to be in Tehran.
The IRGC ordered Shakeri to surveil and kill Trump for revenge the death of Qassem Soleimanithe leader of Iran’s elite Quds Force, during a US drone strike in Baghdad in January 2020, the complaint said.
PHOTO: Iranian protesters hold up posters of the late Revolutionary Guards general Qassem Soleimani, a center who was killed in a US drone strike in Iraq in 2020, during an annual rally in front of the former US embassy in Tehran, Iran, November 3 , 2024. (Vahid Salemi/AP)
“Few actors in the world pose as serious a threat to the national security of the United States as Iran. The Justice Department has charged an Iranian regime asset who was tasked by the regime to lead a network of criminal allies. to further Iran’s assassination plots against its targets, including President-elect Donald J. Trump,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement announcing the charges.
Shakeri immigrated to the United States but was deported in 2008 after serving a prison sentence for theft, the Justice Department said. While in prison, he met and hired Rivera and Loadholt focus on an Iranian-American activist living in Brooklyn, according to the complaint.
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Although not named in the complaint, the activist matches the description of Masih Alinejad, a prolific journalist and human rights activist who has been critical of the Iranian government and has been the target of multiple plots. Federal prosecutors criminal charges announced last month against IRGC Brig. General Ruhollah Bazghandi in connection with an alleged assassination plot against Alinejad.
Alinejad later posted on social media that she was one of the targets. to write“I’m shocked. I just learned from the @FBI that two men were arrested yesterday in a new plot to kill me at Fairfield University where I was scheduled to give a lecture.”
The IRGC also ordered Shakeri to carry out other assassinations of American and Israeli citizens in the United States, including Trump, the complaint alleges.
PHOTO: Former president and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump attends a town hall meeting in Cumming, Georgia, October 15, 2024. (Elijah Nouvelage/AFP via Getty Images)
In mid-to-late September, Shakeri told the FBI that the IRGC official instructed him to “put aside his other efforts” and “focus on surveilling and ultimately assassinating former President of the United States Donald J. Trump’. complaint said. When Shakeri told his handler that it would cost a lot of money, the IRGC official replied, “We have already spent a lot of money… so the money is not a problem.”
Shakeri told the FBI that during an Oct. 7 meeting with his IRGC handler, he was asked to come up with a plan to kill Trump within seven days. If it couldn’t be done within that time frame, the IRGC would suspend its plan to kill Trump until after the election “because IRGC Official-1 judged that (Trump) would lose the election and that afterward it would be easier to ( Trump) to kill. ” the complaint said.
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He also stated that he was tasked with surveilling two Jewish American citizens living in New York City and was offered $500,000 by an IRGC official for the murder of either victim, the complaint said. He was also tasked with targeting Israeli tourists in Sri Lanka, the complaint said.
“Actors led by the government of Iran continue to attack our citizens, including President-elect Trump, on U.S. soil and abroad. This must stop,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in a statement. “Today’s indictment is another message to those who continue their efforts: we will remain relentless in our pursuit of bad actors, regardless of where they reside, and we will do everything we can to bring to justice those who harm our security. to bring justice.”
Three charged in Iran-linked assassination plots, with one targeting Donald Trump in revenge for Qassem Soleimani’s killing: DOJ originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
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