Activist and journalist Masih Alinejad was the secondary target in Iran’s plot to assassinate Donald Trump, court documents reveal.
The Justice Department on Friday unsealed criminal charges against three people involved in the thwarted plot to kill Trump before the election.
Farjad Shakeri, 51, who is still at-large in Iran, was to be the lead man for both assassinations until the operation was paused
Carlisle Rivera, 49, and Jonathon Loadholt, 36, were arrested by the FBI in New York City and faced court on Thursday, accused of conspiracy.
Activist and journalist Masih Alinejad was the secondary target in Iran’s plot to assassinate Donald Trump, court documents reveal
Alinejad is a human rights activist living in Brooklyn who has long criticized Iran’s extreme repression of women.
She was the target of at least two other recent assassination plots, and is the target of a fatwa issued by Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
Iranian intelligence planned to kidnap her in 2021 and take her back to Iran for a grim fate, and in July 2022 a man was arrested after staking out her home for two weeks with a loaded AK-47.
FBI charging documents described her an an Iranian American journalist, author, and political activist, and an outspoken critic of the Iranian regime’s human rights abuses and corruption.
Alinejad ‘has long been a high-priority target of the Iranian regime’, it stated.
The Justice Department unsealed criminal charges on a thwarted plot by Iran to kill President-elect Donald Trump before the election
The criminal complaint alleged Shakeri was tasked with organizing the hits by Iranian intelligence, and offered Rivera and Loadholt $100,000 to get them done.
Shakeri was tasked with other assassinations of Americans and Israelis around the world, which were not specified in the documents.
The FBI explained the plot began last December when Shakeri paid another conspirator, ‘Feva’, $3,000 to locate Alinejad, after making contact on December 19.
Feva was then paid $3,298.15 by an account in the United Arab Emirates on December 29.
The conspirator, who was not charged over the plot, was jailed for eight to 24 years in 1991 for first-degree manslaughter and released on parole in 2006.
The FBI said he and Shakeri were jailed together and also trafficked drugs.
Rivera and Loadholt allegedly became involved in February when Shakeri paid them $1,000 to surveil Alinejad at a speaking engagement at Fairfield University in Fairfield, Connecticut, on February 15.
Shakeri created a report on Alinejad’s background and activities in his cloud account on February 1 as he compiled his intelligence on her.
Shakeri allegedly paid Rivera and Loadholt $1,000 to surveil Alinejad at a speaking engagement at Fairfield University in Fairfield, Connecticut. This screenshot showed the details for the event, a photo of her, and a money order for $500 to be paid to Rivera
One of the photos allegedly taken by Rivera and Loadholt during the surveillance
Communications between the paid allegedly showed them discussing when they would be paid for the job.
Other evidence cited in the complaint included a receipt for a petrol station near the university, and a black 2007 Honda Accord with South Carolina license plates registered to Loadholt being scanned at Fairfield University on February 15.
There was also two photos they allegedly took at the college, one with a small selfie of Rivera in the corner.
More to come.
