By Abiola Olawale
The United States government has formally pressed charges against an Afghan national identified as Farhad Shakeri over alleged connection with an alleged Iranian plot to assassinate President-elect Donald Trump
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) on Friday, in the formal charges, accused Shakeri, 51, of planning to kill Trump.
In the criminal complaint filed before a Manhattan court, US prosecutors alleged that an official in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard hired one Shakeri in September to devise a strategic plan to surveil and eliminate Trump.
According to the official statement of the US prosecutors, Shakeri told law enforcement that he was contacted by some Iranian Revolutionary Guard officials to come up with a plan to kill Trump within seven days.
Also, the DOJ said it has filed formal charges against two others allegedly recruited to eliminate an American journalist who was an outspoken critic of Iran.
The other individuals were identified by the justice department as Carlisle Rivera, also known as “Pop”, 49, from Brooklyn, and Jonathon Loadholt, 36, from Staten Island.
Prosecutors say the 51-year-old used “a network of criminal associates”, from prison, including Mr Rivera and Mr Loadholt, to conduct surveillance on the Iranian government’s targets.
Shakeri was reported to have promised Rivera and Loadholt the sum of $100,000 to murder the American journalist, who had covered the Iranian regime’s human rights abuses and corruption, prosecutors alleged.
“The Justice Department has charged an asset of the Iranian regime who was tasked by the regime to direct a network of criminal associates to further Iran’s assassination plots against its targets, including President-elect Donald Trump,” US Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement.
The New Diplomat reports that this comes after Trump faced two separate alleged assassination attempts this year.
In July, a gunman grazed the former president’s ear after shooting at him during a Pennsylvania rally. Then, in September, a man was arrested for pointing a rifle at Trump who was golfing on his course in West Palm Beach.
