The US Justice Department on Friday unsealed murder-for-hire charges against an Afghan national it said was tasked by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps with assassinating former President Donald Trump.
Farhad Shakeri, 51, believed to be in Iran, and two New York-based accomplices in US custody were charged with the plot against an unnamed Iranian-American journalist, likely the outspoken dissident Masih Alinejad.
Shakeri, a statement on the criminal complaint said citing an FBI interview with the suspect, was also tasked by Iran's foremost military organization with killing Trump.
"Shakeri has informed law enforcement that he was tasked (by the IRGC) on Oct. 7, 2024, with providing a plan to kill President-elect Donald J. Trump."
The text of the indictment identified Trump as "Victim-4" and alleged that an unidentified IRGC official told Shakeri that money was no object in its plan to kill him.
"In approximately mid-to-late September 2024, IRGC Official-I asked Shakeri to put aside his other efforts on behalf of the IRGC and focus on surveilling, and, ultimately, assassinating, former President of the United States, Donald J. Trump ('Victim-4' herein)."
"Shakeri indicated to IRGC Official-I that this would cost a "huge" amount of money. In response, IRGC Official-I said that 'we have already spent a lot of money ... [s]o the money's not an issue'."
Shakeri now lives in Iran, according to the indictment. He had immigrated to the United States as a child but following a 14-year stint in prison for robbery was deported in around 2008.
Tapping criminal contacts made in prison, Shakeri was able to supply the IRGC with operatives to surveil the Guards' assassination targets, it added.
Attorney General Merrick Garland underscored the danger Iran poses to prominent Americans and pledged to use his department's full resources to protect Iran's targets.
“There are few actors in the world that pose as grave a threat to the national security of the United States as does Iran,” Garland said in the statement.
“The charges announced today expose Iran's continued brazen attempts to target U.S. citizens, including President-elect Donald Trump, other government leaders and dissidents who criticize the regime in Tehran," he added.
During Trump's tenure, the US assassinated Qassem Soleimani, a top IRGC commander who had led the Islamic Republic's foreign military operations. That turned Trump and his senior officials into targets of Iranian assassination plots, US law enforcement has said.
