The US Department of Justice has charged a man allegedly involved in an alleged Iranian plot to assassinate Donald Trump, it said on Friday. The accused, Farhad Shakeri, is said to have been called in by senior members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards to eavesdrop on Trump and assassinate him in the run-up to the elections. This is evident from the publicly released charges, which are based on an official statement by an FBI agent.
According to federal prosecutors in Manhattan, Shakeri, 51, was ordered on October 7 to devise a plan within seven days to assassinate Trump before November 5. If he could not complete that plan before the election, it would be postponed until after the election, Shakeri told investigators. According to the accused, the Revolutionary Guard assumed that Trump would lose the election to his Democratic competitor Kamala Harris.
FBI Director Christopher Wray said in response that the charges “expose Iran’s continued brazen efforts to eliminate American citizens, including recently elected President Donald Trump, other government leaders and dissidents who criticize the regime in Tehran.”
Criminal network
Two American citizens, Carlisle Rivera, 49, and Jonathan Loadholt, 36, are also accused of helping the Iranian government spy on an American citizen of Iranian descent. According to prosecutors, they are involved in a criminal network that receives orders from Iran to commit assassinations, such as the one against Trump. Like Shakeri, they are accused of murder-for-hire and other related crimes.
Prosecutors said Shakeri met Rivera and Loadholt, among others, in prison, where Shakeri allegedly recruited them and other men to participate in assassinations of other targets, including a Brooklyn human rights activist.
Rivera and Loadholt made their first court appearance on Thursday. They remain in custody awaiting trial. Shakeri may still be at large in Iran, the Justice Department said.
According to authorities, there is in any case no connection between the Iranian plot and the assassination attempt that Trump survived in July. The foiled assassination attempt at Trump’s golf course in September is also said to have no link with the case that was made public on Friday.
