A Pakistani man with ties to Iran has been convicted in New York for plotting to assassinate US President Donald Trump and other American political figures to avenge the killing of Iranian Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in 2020.
Asif Raza Merchant, 48, was found guilty by a federal jury in Brooklyn on Friday of murder-for-hire and attempting to commit an act of terrorism transcending national boundaries. Prosecutors said Merchant was sent to the United States in 2024 by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to recruit hitmen to carry out political assassinations. He faces up to life in prison.
According to the US Justice Department, potential targets included Trump, former US president Joe Biden and former US ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley. Merchant told associates he understood the primary target would be Trump.
US Attorney General Pamela Bondi said Merchant entered the country with a plan to kill the US president but was stopped by law enforcement. “This man landed on American soil hoping to kill President Trump — instead, he was met with the might of American law enforcement,” Bondi said.
Investigators said Merchant began working for the IRGC in late 2022 or early 2023 and received training in intelligence tradecraft, including countersurveillance. During this period he travelled repeatedly to Iran to meet with his handler.
In April 2024, Merchant arrived in the United States and began looking for people who could carry out assassinations. He contacted an acquaintance in New York whom he believed could help arrange the killings. The individual instead reported Merchant to authorities and became a confidential source for investigators.
In early June 2024, Merchant met the source in New York and discussed the assassination plot, signalling with a “finger gun” gesture that the opportunity involved killing someone. He said the targets would be “targeted here” in the United States and asked the source to arrange meetings with individuals who could carry out the attack.
Later that month, the source introduced Merchant to men posing as contract killers, who were actually undercover US law enforcement officers. Merchant told them he wanted help with three tasks: stealing documents, organising protests at political rallies, and killing a “political person” in the United States.
Merchant said the hitmen would receive the final instructions on who to kill after he had left the country. On June 21, 2024, he met the undercover officers in New York and paid them USD 5,000 in cash as an advance for the planned assassination.
He was arrested before he could leave the United States in July 2024.
