Pakistani man convicted in US over alleged Iran-linked plot to kill Trump, Biden

Prosecutors said the accused, Asif Merchant, 47, was an operative of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), according to a press release by US Department of Justice.

He was arrested in Texas in July that year.

"Merchant admitted at trial that the IRGC sent him to the United States to arrange for political assassinations and steal documents, but law enforcement foiled the plot before any attack could be carried out. Merchant arrived in the United States in April of 2024, met with purported hitmen in June-who were in fact undercover US law enforcement officers in New York-and was placed under arrest before leaving the country in July of 2024. Merchant faces up to life in prison", reads a press release from the US Department of Justice.

During the trial, Merchant told jurors that his handler in Iran had given him three potential targets, then US president Joe Biden, president Donald Trump and former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, according to a Bloomberg report.