The United States charged an Iranian man in connection with an alleged plot ordered by Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards Corps to assassinate President-elect Donald Trump, the Department of Justice said.
Farhad Shakeri informed law enforcement “that he was tasked on 7 October 2024, with providing a plan to kill” Mr Trump, the department said in a statement. It said Mr Shakeri told law enforcement he did not intend to formulate such a plan within the time frame directed by the IRGC.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said in a statement carried by Iranian media that the claim was a “repulsive” plot by Israel and Iranian opposition outside the country to “complicate matters between America and Iran.”
The DOJ described Mr Shakeri, 51, as a Revolutionary Guard asset residing in Tehran. It said he immigrated to the US as a child and was deported around 2008 following a robbery conviction. Mr Shakeri is at large and believed to be in Iran, the prosecutors said.
Two New York residents whom Mr Shakeri had met in prison, Carlisle Rivera and Jonathan Loadholt, were also charged with helping Mr Shakeri plot to kill a US citizen of Iranian origin in New York, described as an outspoken critic of Iran’s government who had previously been targeted for murder.
Prosecutors did not identify the target, but it matched the description of a journalist and activist who has criticized Iran’s head-covering laws for women.
Mr Rivera and Mr Loadholt were ordered detained pending trial. Their lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for comment.