A Pakistani man accused of plotting to assassinate United States politicians, including President Donald Trump, told a court on Wednesday that he was pressured by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to organise the murder-for-hire scheme, according to US media reports.
Asif Raza Merchant, 47, was charged in September 2024 with attempting to hire a hitman to assassinate unidentified US politicians. He pleaded not guilty to the charges.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has previously been linked to alleged plots against senior US officials, including Trump, following the 2020 killing of one of its top commanders, Qasem Soleimani, by the United States.
While testifying in court on Wednesday, Merchant said he became involved in the alleged plot to protect his family in Tehran from the Guards. He also told the court he believed he would be arrested before anyone was harmed, several media outlets reported.
Merchant said he was never given orders to assassinate a specific individual. However, he told the court that his Iranian contact mentioned three political figures during discussions about the plot — Trump, former president Joe Biden and former UN ambassador Nikki Haley.
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“My family was under threat, and I had to do this,” Merchant told the court through an Urdu interpreter, according to the Washington Post.
“I was not wanting to do this so willingly.”
Merchant’s trial comes at a time when the United States and Israel are carrying out attacks on Iran, which have killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
US officials previously said Merchant had “close ties to Iran” and described the alleged assassination plan as “straight out of the Iranian regime’s playbook.”
Merchant also testified this week that he began working with a member of the Guards around 2022. According to the New York Times, the man asked him whether he was “interested in doing some work with the Iranian government.”
He said he was later instructed to coordinate a plot that involved organising protests, stealing documents, laundering money and possibly arranging the killing of a target.
(AFP)