WASHINGTON: US prosecutors announced charges on Friday in an alleged Iranian plot to assassinate former president Donald Trump.
The foiled assassination plot was allegedly directed by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to avenge the death of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in 2020 in a US strike ordered by then-president Trump, the Justice Department said.
Farhad Shakeri, 51, who is believed to be in Iran, was "tasked" on October 7 by the IRGC with providing a plan to kill Trump, who defeated Vice President Kamala Harris in Tuesday's US presidential election, the department said in a statement.
The agency said Shakeri and two other men, Carlisle Rivera, 49, and Jonathon Loadholt, 36, both of New York, were charged separately with plotting to kill a dissident Iranian-American journalist in New York.
Rivera and Loadholt are both in US custody and made a court appearance in New York on Thursday, the department said.
"The charges announced today expose Iran's continued brazen attempts to target US citizens, including President-elect Donald Trump, other government leaders and dissidents who criticize the regime in Tehran," FBI Director Christopher Wray said.
The Justice Department described Shakeri as an "IRGC asset residing in Tehran."
It said he immigrated to the United States as a child and was deported around 2008 after serving 14 years in prison for robbery.
"In recent months, Shakeri has used a network of criminal associates he met in prison in the United States to supply the IRGC with operatives to conduct surveillance and assassinations of IRGC targets," the Justice Department said.
It said Loadholt and Rivera, at Shakeri's direction, spent months conducting surveillance on a US citizen of Iranian origin who is an outspoken critic of the Iranian regime and has been the target of multiple prior murder plots.
She was not identified but the charges come less than three weeks after a general in the Revolutionary Guards was charged in New York in connection with an alleged plot to assassinate dissident journalist Masih Alinejad, who lives in New York.
The United States has repeatedly accused Iran of seeking to assassinate US officials in retaliation for the US killing of Soleimani.
A Pakistani man with alleged ties to Iran pleaded not guilty in New York earlier this year to charges he tried to hire a hitman to kill a US politician or official.
The State Department has also announced a $20 million reward for information leading to the arrest of the alleged Iranian mastermind behind a plot to assassinate former White House official John Bolton.
