Pakistani with ties to Iran charged in plot to carry out political assassinations in US

A Pakistani man alleged to have ties to Iran has been charged in a plot to carry out political assassinations on US soil, the Justice Department said on Tuesday in disclosing what officials say is the latest murder-for-hire plot originating from abroad to target American public figures.

Asif Merchant travelled to New York in June for the purpose of meeting men he thought he could recruit to carry out the killing, even paying a US$5,000 advance to two would-be assassins who were actually undercover police officers, federal officials said. He was arrested last month as he prepared to leave the US and after having told the men that he would provide further instructions, including the name of the intended targets, in August or September after his return to Pakistan.

But the newly unsealed criminal complaint suggests Merchant may have had high-level officials such as Trump in mind. He told an associate who was secretly cooperating with law enforcement that he wanted a “political person” to be killed, the complaint said, mapping out on a napkin the different scenarios in which the target could be assassinated and warning that there would be security “all around” the person.

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Christopher Wray said at a House hearing last month that the Iranian government had been “extremely aggressive and brazen” in recent years, and Attorney General Merrick Garland said on Tuesday that “we expect that these threats will continue and that these cases will not be the last”.

“The Justice Department will spare no resource to disrupt and hold accountable those who would carry out Iran’s lethal plotting against Americans,” Wray said.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Tuesday