an “agent of Iran” indicted for plotting to assassinate Donald Trump

The American judicial authorities announced, 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 targeting Donald Trump in particular.

Farhad Shakeri, a 51-year-old Afghan residing in Iran after having served fourteen years in prison in the United States for robbery, is accused of having recruited common criminals on behalf of 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 press release from his services. “This agent of the Iranian regime 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.

An assassination plan in October or after the November 5 election

These conclusions are based on telephone conversations between agents of the American federal police (FBI) and Farhad Shakeri, who thus wished to obtain a reduced sentence for a person incarcerated in the United States, according to the prosecution.

During these interviews, 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 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 to him within seven days an assassination plan, 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 it would therefore be easier to target it afterwards, according to the same sources.

The Islamic Republic has for years harbored a desire to retaliate for the death of Revolutionary Guard General Qassem Soleimani, killed on January 3, 2020 in Iraq in a drone strike ordered by Donald Trump during his first term, recalls the Ministry of Defense. justice.

An Iranian-American dissident also targeted

Two Americans were also arrested Thursday in this case – Carlisle Rivera, 49, and Jonathan Loadholt, 36 -, both residents of New York City, and charged with planning the assassination of an American journalist from Iranian origin very critical of the Islamic Republic. The latter, identified as “victim number 1”is not named by name but 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 the University of Fairfield, Connecticut.

In a video posted Friday on social networks, Masih Alinejad confirms that it is her and that she was one of the speakers at this conference, which was ultimately canceled. She specifies that she was informed on February 15 by FBI agents of a “imminent threat” aiming at her.

In October, American justice initiated proceedings against four Iranians, including a general of the Revolutionary Guards, 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.