The US government has filed charges against an Afghan man for allegedly plotting to assassinate Donald Trump before he was elected the next president.
The Justice Department on Friday filed charges against Farhad Shakeri, 51, who it says was tasked with “providing a plan” to kill Trump.
The US government said Mr Shakeri had not been arrested and was believed to be in Iran – describing the allegations as “absolutely baseless”.
In a criminal complaint filed in Manhattan court, prosecutors said a senior officer in Iran's Revolutionary Guard ordered Mr. Shakeri in September to carry out a surveillance plan to kill Trump.
“The Department of Justice has charged an Iranian state agent who was commissioned by the government to target a network of criminal associates to further assassination plans against Iran, including President-elect Donald Trump,” said US Attorney General Merrick Garland. statement.
The Justice Department also charged two others who were allegedly recruited to kill an American journalist who was highly critical of Iran.
The other people were identified by the Department of Justice as Carlisle Rivera, also known as “Pop”, 49, of Brooklyn, and Jonathon Loadholt, 36, of Staten Island.
The two appeared in court in the Southern District of New York on Thursday and were held pending trial.
The spokesperson of Iran's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Esmaeil Baghaei, said that similar allegations of attempts to impeach American presidents were made in the past, which Iran denied and was false.
In a statement, Mr Baghaei added that repeating such allegations risks “creating problems between the US and Iran”.
Trump has faced two separate assassination attempts this year. In July, a gunman took the former president's ear off after shooting him during a rally in Pennsylvania.
Then in September, a man was arrested for pointing a gun at Trump who was playing golf on his course in West Palm Beach.
Mr. Shakeri was asked to come up with a plan to kill Trump within seven days, the lawsuit said.
According to prosecutors, Mr. Shakeri told law enforcement that he had no intention of suggesting a plot to kill Trump during that seven-day period, so Iranian Revolutionary Guard officials temporarily halted the plan.
Mr Shakeri said the Iranian government told him it would be easy to try to kill Trump after the election, because they believed he would lose, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors described Mr. Shakeri as an Afghan national who came to the US as a child. He was eventually deported around 2008 after serving 14 years in prison for robbery.
Prosecutors say that the 51-year-old man used a “network of criminal friends”, in prison, including Mr. Rivera and Mr. Loadholt, to monitor the intentions of the Iranian government.
Mr. Shakeri offered Mr. Rivera and Mr. Loadholt $100,000 to kill an American journalist who had reported on human rights abuses and corruption in the Iranian regime, prosecutors said. The reporter, whose name has been withheld, was targeted earlier, prosecutors said.
In a post on social media on Friday, Brooklyn-based journalist Masih Alinejad said the FBI had arrested two men for trying to kill him. He said the accused of murder arrived in front of his house in Brooklyn.
“I came to America to exercise my constitutional right to freedom of speech—I don't want to die,” Ms. Alinejad wrote. “I want to fight tyranny, and I deserve to be safe.”
Apart from the American journalist and Trump, the case alleges that the Iranian government wanted to kill two American Jewish businessmen living in New York City, who supported Israel on social media.
Mr Shakeri also told prosecutors that his Iranian contacts asked him to plan a shootout to target Israeli tourists in Sri Lanka in October 2024, a year after Hamas attacked Israel.
Mr Shakeri, Mr Rivera and Mr Loadholt were all charged with manslaughter, which carries a maximum sentence of ten years in prison. They also face charges of conspiracy to commit money laundering – which could lead to up to 20 years in prison – and conspiracy to commit murder.
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