INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
candidate Donald Trump, and claim that he was also tasked with targeting Israeli tourists in Sri Lanka.The Justice Department on Friday
announced federal charges in a thwarted Iranian plot to kill Donald Trump before the presidential election.According to court documents,
Iranian officials asked Farhad Shakeri, 51, in September to focus on surveilling and ultimately assassinating Trump
Shakeri is still at large in Iran, the Justice Department said.This is a newly disclosed plot and marks yet another alleged attempt on
But IRGC officials told Shakeri on October 7 to focus only on Trump, court documents say, and that he had seven days to formulate an
assassination plan.Shakeri, who is an Afghan national residing in Tehran, told investigators that if he was unable to do come up with a plan
in that timeframe, the IRGC would wait until after the presidential election to move forward as they believed Trump would lose.Two other
individuals charged on Friday, Carlisle Rivera and Jonathan Loadholt, who are American citizens, were arrested in New York and are accused
of helping the Iranian government surveil a separate US citizen of Iranian origin
They made their initial appearance in court on Thursday, the Justice Department said, and are being detained pending trial.Shakeri also said
he was tasked with surveilling and assassinating two individuals described only as Jewish businesspeople living in New York City.IRGC
officials, prosecutors say, also asked Shakeri to help plan a mass shooting targeting Israeli tourists in Sri Lanka, prompting US and Sri
States and Israel publicly warned travelers about threats of an attack targeting tourist locations in the Arugam By area, and, on or about
the following day, Sri Lankan authorities reported having arrested three individuals in connection with the threat
SHAKERI informed the FBI that he had provided this surveillance to IRGC Official-1.According to SHAKERI, after being provided surveillance
on the Israeli consulate, IRGC Official-1 asked SHAKERI to identify another target, and SHAKERI then instructed CC-2 to surveil a tourist
said.Background of Farhad ShakeriShakeri, an asset of the IRGC based in Tehran, immigrated to the US as a child
He was deported in 2008 after serving 14 years for a robbery conviction
In recent months, Shakeri has been involved in leveraging a network of criminal associates he met in US prisons to assist the IRGC
He has reportedly been supplying the IRGC with operatives for conducting surveillance and assassinations targeting individuals of interest,
according to the US Department of Justice.Though he was deported in 2008, his parole monitoring continued until 2015
In 2019, he was detained in Sri Lanka in connection with the seizure of a large quantity of heroin, highlighting an ongoing series of
alleged criminal activities linked to his network.Shakeri faces multiple charges, including conspiring to provide material support to a
foreign terrorist organisation, which could result in up to 20 years in prison
He is also charged with providing material support to the same organisation, as well as conspiring to violate sanctions against the Iranian
government under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, each of which carries a potential 20-year prison sentence.--With Agencies
