A U.S. jury finds Pakistani man guilty of conspiring in a plot to assassinate Trump

New York .- A jury found Pakistani Asif Merchant guilty this Friday of conspiring in an attempt to assassinate American politicians, including now-President Donald Trump, on behalf of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), after a trial of just over a week in a federal court in New York.

Three names were given to Merchant as possible targets of the attack, planned for 2024, the year he was arrested: then-President Joe Biden, former presidential candidate and former US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley and Trump, as he indicated as part of his testimony on Wednesday in his trial. Merchant, a 47-year-old merchant facing life in prison for the crimes of murder for hire and attempting to commit a terrorist act that transcends national borders, assured from the witness stand that he was forced to agree to hire hitmen in the US - who turned out to be FBI agents - out of fear because his family in Iran had been threatened, that he did not do it "of his own free will".

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Plan to assassinate Trump

He also indicated that he had anticipated being arrested before anyone died, that he intended to cooperate with the United States Government, and that he hoped that would help him obtain his permanent residency (green card) in this country, according to the ABC network. Merchant was constantly traveling to the US for business, which he said motivated him to contact a member of the Revolutionary Guard he had met in 2022, who trained him in counter-surveillance techniques. "The terrorist regime of Iran sent Asif Merchant here to sow chaos and murder. Thanks to the vigilance of our allies in law enforcement, his plan failed," said the federal prosecutor for the Eastern District of New York, in Brooklyn, where the trial was held, Joseph Nocella in a statement from the Department of Justice.

Looking for recruits

Justice also pointed out that, according to the evidence and testimonies presented at the trial, the Pakistani began working for the IRGC in late 2022 or early 2023, and that he received intelligence training, including counter-surveillance. In 2023, they sent him to this country in search of recruits for the IRGC, and during that year, he repeatedly traveled to Iran to meet with his contact in that organization. According to Justice, based on the testimony of the now-convicted, in 2024 he was sent back to the US with another mission: to recruit hitmen for the assassination of one of three politicians to avenge the death of Qasem Soleimani, a lieutenant general considered in Iran a martyr of the revolution and who died in a US attack in 2020.

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To carry out his plan, he contacted an acquaintance in New York but this person reported him and became a government informant. In June, he met with the supposed hitmen to explain his plan and in another meeting, he paid them $5,000 in advance for the job. On July 12, when he was trying to leave the US, he was arrested. The trial has been taking place amidst the start of the war against Iran, but the jury was instructed not to pay attention to it.