American authorities announced Friday the indictment of Farhad Shakeri, a 51-year-old Afghan residing in Iran, accused of having organized assassination plans on orders from Tehran, notably targeting President-elect Donald Trump and an Iranian-American dissident. .
According to the Ministry of Justice, Farhad Shakeri recruited common criminals on behalf of the Revolutionary Guards. “Few actors in the world pose as serious a threat to United States national security as Iran,” Justice Secretary Merrick Garland said. Merrick Garland stressed that the Iranian regime mobilized a network of criminal accomplices to carry out its objectives.
Plans orchestrated from Iran
Farhad Shakeri, who had served a fourteen-year prison sentence in the United States for robbery, is suspected of having received direct instructions in September from a senior official of the Revolutionary Guards. These orders were intended to “focus on the surveillance and ultimately the assassination” of Donald Trump.
Farhad Shakeri was reportedly ordered to present a plan within seven days, on October 7, with the clarification that the project could be postponed until after the November 5 election if Donald Trump lost, in order to make him more vulnerable.
Retaliation for the death of Qassem Soleimani
These assassination plans are part of a desire for retaliation after the death of Qassem Soleimani, general of the Revolutionary Guards, killed in January 2020 in Iraq by a drone strike ordered by Donald Trump.
In connection with this case, two Americans, Carlisle Rivera, 49, and Jonathon Loadholt, 36, were also arrested and charged. They allegedly planned the assassination of Masih Alinejad, a dissident journalist and critic of the Islamic Republic, identified as “victim number 1” in court documents.
“Serious threat” to American security
A plan for an attack against her had been prepared for a conference scheduled for February 2024 in Connecticut. Warned by the FBI of an “imminent threat”, Masih Alinejad confirmed on social networks that she was the target. It had already been targeted by similar attempts in 2022, involving Iranian agents.
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.
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