The Iranian government instructed one of its agents to stalk and assassinate former President Donald Trump this past September, according to a bombshell indictment unsealed by Manhattan federal prosecutors Friday.
According to the indictment, which charges Iranian Farhad Shakeri and two New Yorkers with murder for hire and conspiracy, an unnamed official in Iran’s notorious Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) instructed Shakeri to “focus on surveilling, and, ultimately, assassinating, former President of the United States, Donald J. Trump” in the final weeks of the 2024 campaign.
Prosecutors say that when Shakeri noted that the plot would “cost a ‘huge’ amount of money,” the IRGC official said that “we have already spent a lot of money … [s]o the money’s not an issue.”
In a phone conversation with an undercover FBI agent, Shakeri said he was instructed by the IRGC on Oct. 7 this year to have a plan in place to kill Trump “within seven days.”
Shakeri also inadvertently told the FBI that he had been instructed by Iran to plot a mass shooting targeting Israelis in Sri Lanka — which prompted the US and Israeli governments to issue a travel warning for the island nation on Oct. 23.
If the agent did not meet his deadline, the IRGC contact allegedly said, the hit on Trump would be postponed until after the election, which Tehran apparently assessed that the Republican nominee would lose “and, afterward, it would be easier to assassinate [him].”
The indictment, which refers to the president-elect as “Victim-4,” charges Shakeri, 51, Brooklyn native Carlisle Rivera, 49, and Staten Islander Jonathan Loadholt, 36.
Rivera and Loadholt were ordered held pending trial Thursday by US Magistrate Judge Jennifer Willis. Shakeri is believed to be in Iran and out of the reach of American justice.
“Actors directed by the Government of Iran continue to target our citizens, including President-elect Trump, on US soil and abroad,” Manhattan US Attorney Damian Williams said in a statement Friday. “This has to stop. Today’s charges are another message to those who continue in their efforts — we will remain unrelenting in our pursuit of bad actors, no matter where they reside, and will stop at nothing to bring to justice those who harm our safety and security.”
This is a developing story. Please check back for more updates.
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