Iran’s foreign ministry on Friday refuted a report by the US department of justice (DOJ) alleging that an Iranian official directed a plot to assassinate President-elect Donald Trump, calling the claims “completely baseless and rejected.”
Esmail Baghaei, a spokesperson for the Iranian foreign ministry, said in a statement carried by Iranian media that the DOJ’s accusations are part of a “malicious conspiracy orchestrated by Zionist and anti-Iranian circles, aimed at further complicating issues between the US and Iran,” according to a Fox News report.
Also read: Who is Farhad Shakeri, mastermind behind Iran’s plot to kill President-elect Trump
“Iran has been accused of similar scenarios in the past, which have been firmly denied and proven false,” Baghaei added, as quoted by Fox News.
The DOJ filed a criminal complaint on Friday in a New York City federal court, revealing an alleged plot orchestrated by an unnamed official within Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. The complaint accuses the official of directing Farhad Shakeri, 51, to “focus on surveilling, and, ultimately, assassinating, former President of the United States, Donald J. Trump.”
Shakeri, believed to reside in Iran, remains at large. The DOJ alleges Shakeri, who immigrated to the US as a child and was deported in 2008 after a robbery conviction, was tasked with planning the assassination on October 7, 2024.
The complaint also accuses Shakeri of hiring two New York men, Carlisle Rivera, 49, and Jonathon Loadholt, 36, to surveil and murder an American of Iranian origin for $100,000. The DOJ identifies this individual as journalist Masih Alinejad, a vocal critic of the Iranian regime.
Also read: US justice department files charges over alleged Iranian plot
All three men—Shakeri, Rivera, and Loadholt—face charges of murder-for-hire, conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire, and money laundering conspiracy, carrying potential prison sentences of 10 to 20 years. Shakeri also faces additional charges of conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, which could lead to a 20-year prison sentence.