“There have been two assassination attempts on my life that we know of, and they may or may not involve, but possibly do, Iran, but I don’t really know,” he said at an event in North Carolina.
In Lebanon’s capital Beirut, a food cart vendor passes a billboard showing assassinated leaders Hamas’s Ismail Haniyeh, General Qasem Soleimani of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr.Credit: Getty Images, digitally tinted
Iran, however, has previously denied wanting to kill Trump, or that it is targeting US citizens.
However, according to court documents, prosecutors allege Shakeri – who took part in recorded conversations with law enforcement – was originally tasked by the IRGC to carry out other assassinations against US and Israeli citizens in the US.
This changed on October 7, when they told him to focus only on Trump, giving him seven days to formulate an assassination plan. Shakeri told investigators that if he was unable to come up with a plan within a week, they would wait until after the election.
Had the alleged assassination attempt been carried out before this week’s historic election, it would have been the third attempt on Trump’s life in almost as many months.
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The 78-year-old was almost killed at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania in July, when a gunman opened fire from a nearby roof, grazing Trump’s right ear.
In September, another man was arrested after Secret Service spotted him with a rifle outside the Trump International Golf Course in West Palm Beach.
Shakeri, who is believed to be at large in Tehran, was charged with “murder-for-hire”, alongside two other men he met while serving time in US prison for robbery: New York residents Carlisle Rivera, 49; and Jonathon Loadholt, 36.
Murder for hire comes with a maximum jail term of 10 years. Shakeri has also been charged with conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organisation, which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison; providing material support to a foreign terrorist organisation, which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison; and conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and sanctions against the government of Iran, which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.
The two American citizens were arrested in New York and are accused of helping the Iranian government surveil a separate US citizen of Iranian origin, known only in the indictment as Victim 1, who has been critical of the regime.
“The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps — a designated foreign terrorist organisation — has been conspiring with criminals and hitmen to target and gun down Americans on US soil and that simply won’t be tolerated,” said FBI director Christopher Wray.
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