A criminal complaint said Asif Merchant, 46, sought to recruit people in the United States to carry out the plot in retaliation for the U.S. killing of Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani in 2020.
Former President Donald Trump’s name was floated as a possible target for the plot, but the plan was not to assassinate him, a source said.
Merchant, who prosecutors say spent time in Iran before traveling to the United States from Pakistan, was charged in federal court in Brooklyn, New York, with recruiting or attempting to recruit people to kill for hire, court documents show. A federal judge ordered him detained July 17.
“For years, the Department of Justice has worked aggressively to counter Iran’s blatant and ongoing efforts to retaliate against American government officials for the killing of Iranian General Soleimani,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement.
Court documents did not name targets in the plot. The criminal complaint said Merchant told a law enforcement informant that there would be “perimeter security” around one of the targets.
“We have not received any reports on this issue from the US government. However, it is clear that the aforementioned course of action contradicts the Iranian government’s policy of legally prosecuting the killer of General Soleimani,” the Iranian mission to the United Nations in New York said in a statement.
Trump, the Republican candidate for the November 5 presidential election, was injured in an assassination attempt at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania last month.
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