The United States has indicted an Iranian in connection with an alleged plot ordered by the elite Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to assassinate President-elect Donald Trump, the Justice Department said.
In a statement, the department said Farhad Shakeri had informed law enforcement "that on October 7, 2024, he was tasked with providing a plan to assassinate Trump," the department said. The department described Shakeri, 51, as a CIRG employee residing in Tehran. He immigrated to the U.S. as a child and was deported in or around 2008 after a robbery conviction. Shakeri is at large and believed to be in Iran, prosecutors said.
Two New Yorkers whom Shakeri met in prison, Carlisle Rivera and Jonathan Lodholt, are also accused of helping Shakeri in the plan to kill an Iranian-American citizen in New York who was a vocal critic of Tehran. Prosecutors did not identify the target, but she fit the description of Masih Alinejad, a journalist and activist who has been critical of Iranian laws. Four Iranians were charged in 2021 in connection with a plot to kidnap her, and in 2022 a man was arrested at gunpoint outside her home. Rivera and Loadholt are in custody awaiting trial. Their attorneys did not respond to requests for comment. | BGNES
