Asif Merchant, also known as “Asif Raza Merchant”, is a 46-year-old Pakistani national.
New Delhi:
The US has accused a Pakistani man, who allegedly has links to Iran, of attempting to assassinate American politicians.
Federal prosecutors said Asif Merchant, 46, orchestrated a plot to kill an unidentified politician or U.S. government officials on American soil.
This case prompted the US government to increase security for former US President Donald Trump and other officials. Although the criminal complaint does not explicitly mention Trump, multiple sources told reporters that one of the intended targets of the alleged conspiracy was Trump.
Who is Asif trader
Asif Merchant, also known as “Asif Raza Merchant”, is a 46-year-old Pakistani national. He has two wives, one in Pakistan and one in Iran, as well as children in both countries.
According to his travel records, Asif travels frequently to Iran, Syria and Iraq, the US Department of Justice said.
How Asif planned
Court documents state the plot involved several elements – stealing documents or USB drives from the target’s home; planning protests and killing a politician or government official.
Asif Merchant invented code names for each plot element – “T-shirt” for protests, “flannel shirt” for document theft, “wool jacket” for murder, and “yarn dye” for his meetings.
To lure the person he contacted first, who informed authorities, Merchant told him that he had an uncle in the “yarn dyeing” business in Pakistan and that he could do business with them.
For his plans, Asif Merchant hired people he thought were assassins, but who were actually undercover agents. He asked a government source he believed to be a hit man to explain how “the target” would die in different scenarios.
How your plot failed
Asif Merchant’s plot failed because he tried to recruit FBI agents for the assassination attempt.
He was arrested on July 12 as he was preparing to take a flight out of the country.
In mid-June, Merchant met with people he thought were murderers. They were undercover US police officers (the UCs) in New York.
He told them he wanted them to steal documents, organize protests at political rallies and kill a “political person”.
The plot would have to be carried out after he left the country, and they would be told who the target was in the last week of August or the first week of September, Merchant told the undercover officers.
The merchant arranged to pay $5,000 in cash as a down payment for assassination services and successfully delivered this payment on June 21.
After this transaction, he planned to leave the country on July 12, 2024, the day before the assassination attempt on Donald Trump. However, authorities intervened and arrested him before he could leave, the court document said.
This story originally appeared on Ndtv.com read the full story
