Pakistani man, accused of plotting to assassinate Donald Trump, says Iran's Revolutionary Guards pressured him
Asif Raza Merchant, a Pakistani man, was charged in September 2024 with seeking to hire a contract killer to assassinate unidentified US politicians. He has denied the charges.
The United States media has said that a Pakistani man, who was accused of plotting to assassinate President Donald Trump, has blamed Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards for pressuring him. Asif Raza Merchant said he was pressured to devise a murder-for-hire scheme. His plot failed when he actually hired some Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents as hired killers.
The Pakistani man was charged in September 2024 with seeking to hire a contract killer to assassinate unidentified US politicians. He has denied the charges.
The Revolutionary Guards have previously sought to kill top US officials, such as Trump, following the 2020 killing of one of their commanders, Qasem Soleimani, by the United States.
During his trial on Wednesday, Asif Raza Merchant testified that he was forced into the plot to protect his family members, who reside in Tehran. He said he thought he would get caught before anyone was killed, multiple media outlets reported.
He also mentioned that his contract mentioned three people in connection with the plot: Donald Trump, former president Joe Biden and former UN ambassador Nikki Haley.
According to the Washington Post, Raza Merchant said, “My family was under threat, and I had to do this. I was not wanting to do this so willingly.” His trial is currently underway.
The Pakistani man's trials have come as the United States, in a joint operation with Israel, launched heavy airstrikes on Iran on 28 February. The strikes have killed Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and many other politicians.
US officials previously said Merchant had "close ties to Iran" and described his alleged plot as "straight out of the Iranian regime's playbook".
Merchant said this week that he began working with a member of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards around 2022, after the man asked if he was “interested in doing some work with the Iranian government,” the New York Times reported.
He was eventually instructed to orchestrate a plot that involved arranging protests, stealing documents, laundering money and potentially having someone killed.
The Times reported that Merchant said he had been worried about what would happen to his wife and adopted daughter in Iran, so he agreed to the operation.
He was arrested after reportedly trying to hire hitmen who turned out to be undercover FBI agents.
Asif Raza Merchant is a Pakistani national who frequently travels to Iran, Iraq and Syria, his travel records said, as per the Department of Justice. He has two wives. While one lives in Pakistan, another lives in Iran.
(With AFP inputs)
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