US prosecutors have charged an Iranian man on suspicion of a possible plan to assassinate Donald Trump before he is elected the next president. The 51-year-old suspect Farhad Shakeri has not been arrested and is believed to be residing in Iran, the Ministry of Justice reported in a press release on Friday.
According to the ministry, Shakeri had been instructed by the Iranian regime to direct a network to assassinate Donald Trump, among others. The indictment, filed in federal court in Manhattan and made public by the Justice Department, alleges that a senior member of the Revolutionary Guard assigned him to surveil and ultimately kill Trump. According to the plan, this should have been done before the November 5 elections. If Shakeri were unable to do so, the plan would be postponed until after the elections, according to the complaint.
Shakeri is said to be a member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and has a network in the United States, after immigrating to the US as a child. He spent fourteen years in prison for theft, was deported from the US around 2008 and now lives in Tehran.
“The indictments announced today 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,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said in the statement . According to the indictment, the Iranian regime wants to take revenge for the death of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani, who was killed by a US drone strike in Baghdad in 2020 – when Trump was president.
Two American citizens are also charged for their possible involvement in a plot to murder an American citizen of Iranian descent. Carlisle Rivera and Jonathon Loadholt, two Americans, were arrested in New York and are accused of surveilling another American citizen. They made their first court appearance on Thursday, the Justice Department said, and remain in custody awaiting trial.
According to authorities, there is no connection with the assassination attempt that Trump survived in July and the suspected assassination attempt at Trump’s golf course in September.
