'Iranian agent' indicted in US over Trump assassination plot

US judicial authorities announced on Friday the indictment of an “agent of Iran” accused of having received orders from Tehran, which it denies, to organize assassination plans in the United States targeting Donald Trump in particular.

Farhad Shakeri, a 51-year-old Afghan living in Iran after serving 14 years in a U.S. prison for robbery, is accused of recruiting common criminals to work for the Islamic Republic’s ideological army, the Revolutionary Guard Corps, according to court documents.

“Few actors in the world pose as grave a threat to the national security of the United States as Iran,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement from his office.

“This Iranian regime agent was tasked by the regime with leading a network of criminal accomplices to carry out Iran's assassination plans against its targets, including President-elect Donald Trump,” he added.

Made public three days after the Republican billionaire won the presidential election, these accusations were rejected by Iranian diplomacy, which on Saturday described as “totally unfounded (…) the allegations that Iran is involved in an assassination attempt targeting former or current American officials.”

The conclusions of the American justice system are based on telephone conversations between agents of the American federal police (FBI) and Farhad Shakeri, who wanted to obtain a sentence reduction for a person imprisoned in the United States, according to the prosecution.

During these conversations, which took place between September 30 and Thursday, he notably claimed to have received instructions in September from a senior official of the Revolutionary Guards to “focus on the surveillance and ultimately the assassination of former President Donald Trump”, according to these documents.

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This official asked him on October 7 to present him with an assassination plan within seven days, explaining to him that beyond this deadline, the project would be postponed until after the November 5 election, considering that Donald Trump would lose it and that it would therefore be easier to target him afterwards, according to the same sources.

– Kidnapping and assassination plans –

The Islamic Republic has for years been seeking retaliation for the death of Revolutionary Guard General Qassem Soleimani, who was killed on January 3, 2020 in Iraq in a drone strike ordered by Donald Trump during his first term, the Justice Department said.

Two Americans were also arrested Thursday in this case, Carlisle Rivera, 49, and Jonathon Loadholt, 36, both residents of New York City, and charged with planning the assassination of an Iranian-born American journalist who is highly critical of the Islamic Republic.

Exiled Iranian-American dissident Masih Alinejad at a conference in Washington on September 20, 2024 © GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA – Jemal Countess

The latter, identified as “victim number 1”, is not named but described as having already been the target of assassination or kidnapping attempts ordered by Tehran, which corresponds to Iranian-American journalist and dissident Masih Alinejad.

Court documents indicate plans to monitor “victim number 1” during a conference scheduled for February 15, 2024 at Fairfield University in Connecticut (northeast).

In a video released Friday on social media, Masih Alinejad confirmed that it was her and that she was one of the speakers at the conference, which was ultimately canceled. She said that she had been informed on February 15 by FBI agents of an “imminent threat” targeting her.

In October, the American justice system brought proceedings against four Iranians, including a general in the Revolutionary Guards, for having ordered 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.

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