"I was not wanting to do this so willingly. Merchant testified that his Iranian handler, a Revolutionary Guard official named Mehrdad Yousef, had directed him to travel to the US in 2024 and recruit criminals to carry out a four-part operation: staging protests, stealing documents, laundering money and arranging a murder."
"He pressed on anyway, he claimed, because he believed Iranian intelligence was monitoring his every move and would harm his wife and adopted daughter in Tehran if he wavered. Federal prosecutors have flatly rejected Merchant's account, telling the judge in a filing on Wednesday there was no evidence supporting a genuine duress defense."
Asif Merchant, a 47-year-old Pakistani businessman, testified in his own defense at Brooklyn federal court against terrorism and murder-for-hire charges. He claimed Iranian Revolutionary Guard official Mehrdad Yousef coerced him into a four-part operation involving protests, document theft, money laundering, and assassination. Yousef allegedly named Trump, Biden, and Nikki Haley as potential targets. Merchant stated he participated only under duress, fearing harm to his wife and adopted daughter in Tehran. He paid undercover FBI agents $5,000 for the supposed assassination. Upon arriving in the US in 2024, Merchant claimed he realized he was under surveillance but continued out of fear for his family's safety. Federal prosecutors rejected his duress defense, arguing insufficient evidence supports his account.
#assassination-plot #iran-revolutionary-guard #coercion-defense #terrorism-charges #federal-prosecution
Read at www.theguardian.com
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