Three men charged over alleged Iranian plot to kill Donald Trump
A criminal complaint alleges an unnamed official in Iran instructed a contact this past September to put together a plan to kill Donald Trump.
Three men have been charged over an alleged Iranian plot to kill Donald Trump before the presidential election, the US Justice Department has revealed.
A criminal complaint filed in federal court in Manhattan alleges that an unnamed official in Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard instructed a contact in September to put together a plan to surveil and ultimately kill the president-elect.
If the man, identified as 51-year-old Farjad Shakeri, was unable to create a plan by then, the complaint said, the official told him Iran would pause its plan until after the presidential election because the official believed Mr Trump would lose.
The official allegedly told Shakeri it would be easier to assassinate the president-elect then, the complaint said.
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Shakeri told the FBI he was not going to come up with a plan to murder Mr Trump within the seven days the official had requested, according to the complaint.
He and two other men – Carlisle River, 49, of Brooklyn, New York, and Jonathon Loadholt, 36, of Staten Island – have been charged with murder-for-hire, conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire, and money laundering conspiracy.
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Shakeri has also been charged with providing material support to a foreign terrorist organisation, conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organisation, and conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and sanctions against the Government of Iran.
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Attorney General Merrick B Garland said in a statement announcing the charges: “There are few actors in the world that pose as grave a threat to the national security of the United States as does Iran.”
The plot reflects what federal officials have described as ongoing efforts by Iran to target US government officials, including the president-elect, inside the US.
