WASHINGTON, Aug 10 (Reuters) – The United States on Wednesday charged a member of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard Corps with plotting to assassinate John Bolton, a national security adviser to former President Donald Trump.
The Justice Department alleged that Shahram Poursafi, also known as Mehdi Rezayi, 45, of Tehran, was likely motivated to kill Bolton in retaliation for the death of Qassem Soleimani, a commander in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. of Iran killed in a US drone strike in January. 2020
Poursafi was also willing to pay $1 million for a second “job,” the department said.
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Trump-era Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was the second target, according to Morgan Ortagus, who served as a State Department spokesman during his tenure. The Justice Department had no immediate comment.
Iran has no extradition treaty with the United States, and Poursafi remains at large. The FBI released a most wanted poster on Wednesday.
Tehran condemned the US move.
“Iran strongly warns against any action against Iranian citizens under the pretext of these ridiculous and baseless accusations,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said. Read more
Washington does not believe the charges should affect talks with Tehran on reviving the 2015 nuclear deal under which Iran curbed its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief, a US official on condition of anonymity. Read more
Former U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton adjusts his glasses during his lecture at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, U.S., February 17, 2020. REUTERS/Jonathan Drake/File Photo
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However, it was unclear how the Revolutionary Guards, a powerful political faction in Iran that controls a business empire as well as the elite military and intelligence forces that Washington accuses of a global terror campaign, could react to the charges.
Indirect talks between the United States and Iran ended in Vienna on Monday with European Union officials saying they had presented a final text to resurrect the nuclear deal, which Trump abandoned in 2018. read more
According to the criminal complaint, Poursafi asked a US resident identified only as “Individual A” to photograph Bolton, under the guise that the photos were needed for an upcoming book. The American resident then introduced Poursafi to an undercover government informant who could take the photographs for a price.
Investigators said the following month Poursafi contacted the informant on an encrypted messaging app and offered the person $250,000 to hire someone to “take out” Bolton, an amount that would later be negotiated down to 300,000 dollars.
When the informant asked Poursafi to be more specific in his request, he said he wanted to purge “the guy” and provided Bolton’s first and last name, according to an affidavit in support of the complaint.
He later told the informant to open a cryptocurrency account to facilitate payment.
In subsequent communications, he allegedly told the informant that it did not matter how the killing was carried out, but that his “group” would require a video as proof that the act had been done.
Several current and former US officials are on extra security because of Iranian threats, CNN reported.
“I think it’s very accurate to say that many other Americans are in the sights of this regime,” Bolton told the network. “It tells you what the regime is. It tells you its character.”
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Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Additional reporting by Arshad Mohammed, Michelle Nichols, Rami Ayyub, Steve Holland and Costas Pitas; Editing by Howard Goller and Rosalba O’Brien
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