Iran’s overseas ministry on Friday refuted a report by the US division of justice (DOJ) alleging that an Iranian official directed a plot to assassinate President-elect Donald Trump, calling the claims “utterly baseless and rejected.”Esmail Baghaei, a spokesperson for the Iranian overseas ministry, mentioned in an announcement carried by Iranian media that the DOJ’s accusations are a part of a “malicious conspiracy orchestrated by Zionist and anti-Iranian circles, aimed toward additional complicating points between the US and Iran,” in response to a Fox Information report.Additionally learn: Who’s Farhad Shakeri, mastermind behind Iran’s plot to kill President-elect Trump”Iran has been accused of comparable situations prior to now, which have been firmly denied and confirmed false,” Baghaei added, as quoted by Fox Information.The DOJ filed a felony grievance on Friday in a New York Metropolis federal court docket, revealing an alleged plot orchestrated by an unnamed official inside Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. The grievance accuses the official of directing Farhad Shakeri, 51, to “concentrate on surveilling, and, finally, assassinating, former President of america, Donald J. Trump.”Shakeri, believed to reside in Iran, stays at massive. The DOJ alleges Shakeri, who immigrated to the US as a toddler and was deported in 2008 after a theft conviction, was tasked with planning the assassination on October 7, 2024.The grievance additionally accuses Shakeri of hiring two New York males, Carlisle Rivera, 49, and Jonathon Loadholt, 36, to surveil and homicide an American of Iranian origin for $100,000. The DOJ identifies this particular person as journalist Masih Alinejad, a vocal critic of the Iranian regime.Additionally learn: US justice division recordsdata expenses over alleged Iranian plotAll three males—Shakeri, Rivera, and Loadholt—face expenses of murder-for-hire, conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire, and cash laundering conspiracy, carrying potential jail sentences of 10 to twenty years. Shakeri additionally faces further expenses of conspiring to offer materials assist to a overseas terrorist group, which might result in a 20-year jail sentence.
