(Pic Credits: X)
In Brooklyn, a jury has found Asif Merchant, a 47-year-old Pakistani businessman, guilty of terrorism and murder for hire charges after the prosecutors alleged that he had tried to plan the assassination of a US political figure in the 2024 presidential race. Officials claimed that the scheme was connected with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The verdict given after a week long trial has seen Merchant now being faced with the prospect of a life sentence after the trial. In their case, prosecutors had claimed that Merchant had sought the services of hitmen to commit a high profile political murder on American soil.
During his court testimony, Merchant argued that he had been acting as ordered by a source whom he felt was related to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. As per his hearing, the handler did not give a particular target but mentioned several well known American political leaders among potential targets, such as Donald Trump, Joe Biden and former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, who later briefly ran in the 2024 presidential race. The state of Iran has refused to participate in conspiracies against US officials. The problem with the alleged plan, said prosecutors, was that when Merchant explained to an acquaintance his assassination proposal he used objects on a napkin to show how a shooting at a political rally was to occur.
The acquaintance forwarded the conversation to the authorities, who, in turn, set up the meeting with Merchant under the guise of hitmen undercover FBI agents. Prosecutors claimed that Merchant had talked about murdering someone politically during a meeting in Manhattan, and that they had recorded their communication and he had given them 5,000 dollars in cash. On July 12, 2024, Merchant was arrested as he was about to board a plane to Pakistan. Defence claimed that he had done it under pressure and feared inflicting injury on his relatives back in Iran but the prosecutors insisted that he had taken tangible measures to facilitate the alleged plot.
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