Justice Department charges Iran with plot to assassinate Trump | Wilnesh News

The Justice Department on Friday charged an Iranian man and two New York residents in connection with a murder-for-hire plot targeting then-candidate Donald Trump and others.

Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a press release that the Iranian government directed these actors to “target citizens here and abroad, including President-elect Trump.”

The department said the plot was part of Iran’s retaliation for the death of Iranian military leader Qasem Soleimani during the Trump administration.

The three charged are Farhad Shakeri, of Iran; Carlisle Rivera, of Brooklyn, N.Y.; and Jonathan Lodholt, of Staten Island, N.Y. .

According to the criminal complaint, an official with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the military and counterintelligence agency Designated as a terrorist organization The first Trump administration told Shakri in mid-to-late September that it would focus on monitoring and assassinating Trump.

Shaqri told Iranian officials it would cost “a ‘huge’ amount of money,” the indictment said, adding that he understood Iran was “willing to continue to spend a lot of money” to kill Trump.

The indictment states that Shaqri told law enforcement in a taped interview that around October 7, Iranian officials tasked Shaqri with providing a plan to kill Trump within seven days.

Iranian officials warned Shaqri that if he failed to meet the deadline to come up with an assassination plot, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps would “suspend plans to assassinate (Trump) until after the U.S. presidential election,” as the official assessed that Trump would “lose election “then it would be easier to assassinate (Trump),” the complaint says. Shakri allegedly told FBI officials that he did not intend to come up with a plan to assassinate Trump within the time limit set by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Shakri was also ordered to spy on and murder two Jewish Americans living in New York City, and to target Israeli tourists in Sri Lanka.

Shakri has spoken to federal agents five times since late September, including the day after he was assigned to assassinate Trump. Shakri allegedly tried to curry favor with federal investigators by helping a man currently serving a sentence in a U.S. prison get a reduced sentence.

Trump communications director Steven Chang said Friday that the president-elect was aware of the attempted assassination plot. “Nothing can stop President Trump from returning to the White House and restoring peace to the world,” he said.

Prosecutors accuse Shaqri of being an “Islamic Revolutionary Guards asset” living in Tehran and an Afghan national who immigrated to the United States as a child. Convicted of robbery in 1994, he served about 14 years in a New York state prison before being deported from the United States around 2008.

They said Rivera was arrested Thursday in Brooklyn and in Lord Haute, Staten Island. Prosecutors say they were recruited as part of a criminal network aimed at killing an American journalist who was a strong critic of the Iranian regime and its human rights abuses. Journalist Masih Alinejad confirmed to NBC News that he was the target.

A search of Lodeholt’s cloud account showed photos of him holding two handguns, and Rivera’s cloud account showed multiple semiautomatic rifles and a shotgun. The two allegedly spied on Alinejad on multiple occasions.

exist Posts on X On Friday, Alinejad said she was “shocked” by the news and learned from the FBI that Lord Holt and Rivera had been arrested on charges of conspiring to assassinate her at Fairfield University, where she was a student. Determined to give a speech there.

“I also learned that the same person assigned to assassinate @realDonaldTrump was also assigned to assassinate me on American soil,” she wrote. “The alleged murderer also came to my doorstep in Brooklyn. I call on the U.S. government and future The president of the United States takes a tough stance on terrorism.”

“The Islamic Republic knows only one language: the language of pressure,” she wrote. “I came to America to practice my First Amendment right to free speech – I didn’t want to die. I wanted to fight tyranny, and I deserved to be safe.”

Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement, “There are few actors in the world who pose as grave a threat to U.S. national security as Iran. We will not tolerate the Iranian regime’s attempts to jeopardize the American people and U.S. national security.”

FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a statement that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps “has been conspiring with criminals and killers to target and shoot Americans on U.S. soil, and this will never be tolerated.”

Trump was assassinated twice during his presidential campaign – once at a campaign rally in July and again in September while he was on a golf course in Florida. In the weeks leading up to my first attempt, Biden administration has obtained intelligence on Iranian plot to assassinate Trumpwhich led the Secret Service to increase security around the former president.

Trump is It was also briefed by U.S. intelligence officials after the September attacks. Iran threatened to kill him.

The three defendants were charged with murder-for-hire, conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire and money laundering. The charges carry a maximum penalty of 40 years in prison.

It is believed that Shakri found his co-defendants by tapping a network of criminal associates he met while serving time in a New York prison.

Shaqri was also charged with conspiring to provide material support to foreign terrorist organizations, providing material support to terrorist organizations, and conspiring to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and sanctions against the Iranian government. The charges carry a total penalty of up to 60 years in prison.