Iran has denied that it was behind an alleged plot to assassinate Donald Trump after the US Justice Department charged several men in connection with the plan.
Three alleged hitmen were charged on Friday over the “murder-for-hire” scheme reportedly ordered by the feared Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
One of the men, Farhad Shakeri, is still on the run having fled the US for the Iranian capital Tehran where he is out of reach. He allegedly confessed to the FBI that the Iranians have been devoting “a lot” of money on efforts to kill Trump. The other two are under arrest.
The man said he had been tasked by a government official before the presidential election with assassinating the Republican president-elect.
However, Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei dismissed the allegations, calling them a plot by Israel-linked circles to complicate Iran-US relations, the official IRNA news agency reported.
Similar accusations in the past were rejected by Iran as their "erroneousness" was proved, he said.
"Repeating the accusation in the current time span is a disgusting plot by the Zionist and anti-Iran circles aimed at complicating US-Iran issues," Mr Baghaei said.
The man claimed he had been tasked by a government official before the presidential election with assassinating the Republican president-elect.
Investigators learned of the plot to kill Mr Trump from Farhad Shakeri, an alleged Iranian government asset who spent time in American prisons for robbery. Authorities say he maintains a web of criminal associates involved in Tehran's assassination plots.
Shakeri told investigators that in September, a contact in Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard instructed him to put together a plan within seven days to surveil and ultimately kill Mr Trump, according to a criminal complaint unsealed in federal court in Manhattan.
Shakeri claimed the Iranian official said "we have already spent a lot of money" and that "money's not an issue."
He told investigators the official said that if he couldn’t assemble a plan within the seven-day timeframe, the plot would be paused until after the election, assuming Mr Trump would lose, making it easier to target him, the complaint stated.
Shakeri is at large and remains in Iran.
Two other men allegedly recruited to participate in other assassinations, including of a prominent Iranian American journalist, were arrested on Friday.
Shakeri, an Afghan national who immigrated to the US as a child but was later deported after spending 14 years in prison for robbery, also told investigators that his Revolutionary Guard contact tasked him with plotting the killings of two Jewish-Americans in New York and Israeli tourists in Sri Lanka.
The criminal complaint says Shakeri disclosed details of the alleged plots in a series of recorded telephone interviews with FBI agents while in Iran.
The stated reason for his cooperation, he told investigators, was to try to secure a reduced prison sentence for an associate behind bars in the US.
