The US judicial authorities announced, on Friday, November 8, the indictment of a “agent of Iran” accused of having received orders from Tehran to organize assassination plans in the United States aimed in particular at Donald Trump.
Farhad Shakeri, a 51-year-old Afghan living in Iran after serving 14 years in prison in the United States for robbery, is accused of recruiting common criminals for the Revolutionary Guards, the ideological army of the Islamic Republic, according to court documents.
“Few actors in the world pose as serious a threat to U.S. national security as Iran.”declared the Minister of Justice, Merrick Garland, in a statement from his services. “This agent of the Iranian regime was tasked with leading a network of criminal accomplices to carry out Iran’s assassination plans against its targets, including President-elect Donald Trump.”he added.
An assassination plot in October or after the November 5 elections
These conclusions are based on telephone conversations between agents of the US federal police (FBI) and Farhad Shakeri, who wanted to obtain a reduced sentence for a person imprisoned in the United States, according to the prosecution.
During these interviews, which took place between September 30 and Thursday, he stated in particular that he had received instructions in September from a senior official of the Revolutionary Guard of “focus on the surveillance and ultimately the assassination of former President Donald Trump”according to these documents.
This official asked him, on October 7, to present an assassination plan within seven days, explaining that beyond that period the project would be postponed until after the elections on November 5, considering that Donald Trump would lose. and, therefore, it would be easier to attack it later, according to the same sources.
For years, the Islamic Republic has harbored the desire to retaliate for the death of Revolutionary Guard General Qassem Soleimani, killed on January 3, 2020 in Iraq in a drone attack ordered by Donald Trump during his first term, the Ministry recalls. of Justice.
An Iranian-American dissident also attacked
In this case, two Americans were also arrested on Thursday – Carlisle Rivera, 49, and Jonathon Loadholt, 36 -, both residents of New York, and accused of planning the murder of an American journalist of Iranian origin who was very critical of the Islamic Republic. The latter, identified as “victim number 1”He is not listed by name but is described as having already been the target of assassination or kidnapping attempts sponsored by Tehran, which corresponds to the Iranian-American journalist and dissident Masih Alinejad.
Court documents show plans to monitor the “victim number 1” during a conference scheduled for February 15, 2024 at Fairfield University, Connecticut.
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In a video posted on social media on Friday, Masih Alinejad confirms that it is her and that she was one of the speakers at this conference, which was ultimately cancelled. She states that she was informed on February 15 by FBI agents of a “imminent threat” pointing at her.
In October, US justice began a trial against four Iranians, including a Revolutionary Guard general, for having sponsored a plan to assassinate Masih Alinejad in New York in 2022. The target was not identified, but Masih Alinejad had confirmed that It was her.
