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Washington — United States On Wednesday, it indicted members of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard Corps for plotting to kill former President Donald Trump's national security adviser, John Bolton.
The Justice Department said Shahram Pursafi, 45, also known as Tehran's Mehdi Rezai, killed Bolton in retaliation for the death of Qassem Soleimani, commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. He argued that he was likely motivated to do so.
Poursafi also said he was willing to pay $1 million for his second "job," the State Department said.
Trump-era Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was the second target, according to former State Department spokesman Morgan Ortagus. The Justice Department did not immediately comment.
Iran does not have an extradition treaty with the United States and Pursafi is on the run. The FBI released a Most Wanted poster on Wednesday.
Tehran condemned the US move.
"Iran strongly cautions against taking any action against the Iranian people on the pretext of these absurd and unfounded accusations," Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani said. .
Washington said it believed the accusations should not affect negotiations with Tehran over the reinstatement of the 2015 nuclear deal, in which Iran curbed its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. A US official spoke on condition of anonymity.
But the Revolutionary Guard – the powerful political faction in Iran that controls the business empire and the elite military and intelligence services that Washington accuses of global terrorist activity – – May react to fees.
Indirect talks between the US and Iran ended in Vienna on Monday, with European Union officials saying they had submitted final documents to revive the nuclear deal Trump abandoned in 2018.
Pursafi asked a U.S. resident, identified only as "Individual A," to photograph Bolton, under the false pretense that the photograph was needed for an upcoming book, according to the criminal complaint. Did. The US resident then referred Puru Safi to a secret government informant.
Investigators said the following month that Pursafi contacted an informant on his application via encrypted messaging, asking him to hire someone to "eliminate" Bolton. said it offered $250,000.
When the informant asked his Poursafi more specifically about his demands, he said he wanted "that man" to be purged, giving an affidavit in support of the complaint. provided Bolton's first and last name, according to the document.
He later instructed informants to open cryptocurrency accounts to facilitate payments.
In a subsequent correspondence, he told his informant that it did not matter how the killings were committed, but that his "group" needed the video as proof that the deed had taken place.
Several current and former US officials have been given special security due to the Iranian threat, according to a CNN report.
"I think it's fair to say that many other Americans are being targeted by this administration," Bolton told the network. "It tells you what the regime is. It tells you its character." (Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; additional reporting by Arshad Mohammed, Michelle Nichols, Rami Ayyub, Steve Holland, and Costas Pitas; Howard Goller and Rosalba O'Brien)
