Pakistani citizen found guilty in US of planning Iran-directed assassinations of top politicians
A Pakistani man was convicted on Friday of plotting to kill President Donald Trump and other prominent US politicians two years ago at the behest of Iran, the Justice Department said.
Asif Merchant was accused of trying to recruit people in the United States in a plan to target Trump and others in retaliation for Washington’s killing of Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani in 2020, when Trump was in his first term.
Targets in the 2024 plot also included then-President Joe Biden and Nikki Haley, who ran against Trump that year for the Republican presidential nomination, federal prosecutors said.
Merchant was convicted of “murder for hire and attempting to commit an act of terrorism that transcends national borders,” directed by Iranian authorities, the DOJ said in a statement.
The trial in the New York borough of Brooklyn began last week, days before Trump ordered an attack on Iran carried out with Israel, which has widened into the region’s biggest war in years.
Read: Pakistan urges Iran to avoid Gulf attack
Merchant admitted to joining the plan with Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, but testified that he did so unwillingly to protect his family in Tehran.
Merchant said he was never ordered to kill a specific person , but that his Iranian handlers named three people during talks in the Iranian capital.
Law enforcement foiled the plan before an attack took place. A person Merchant contacted in April 2024 to help with the plot reported his activities and became a confidential informant, the DOJ said. Merchant was arrested and pleaded not guilty that year.
The Revolutionary Guard has a central role in Iran, with a combination of military and economic power and an intelligence network. Tehran has denied the allegations were aimed at Trump or other US officials.
US and Israeli strikes since Saturday have killed at least 1,332 Iranian civilians and wounded thousands, according to Iran’s UN ambassador. Many top Iranian leaders, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, have been killed.
The US military has said six of its service members were killed in an attack on a facility in Kuwait, while Israeli figures show at least 10 civilians have been killed across Israel.
