Kanaani: The US judicial authorities issued accusations without evidence (Atta Kanari/AFP)
On Thursday, Tehran rejected the accusations of a US court of a conspiracy led by a member of the Islamic Republic Iran’s Revolutionary Guards To assassinate the former National Security Adviser to the White House John BoltonShe described it as “ridiculous”.
On Wednesday, the US Department of Justice confirmed that Shahram Borsafi, 45, also known as Mehdi Rezaei, was charged in absentia for offering to pay $300,000 to people in the United States to kill Bolton, who previously also served as the US ambassador to the United Nations.
It seems that the plot was intended to avenge the assassination of the general Qassem SoleimaniThe former commander of the “Quds Force” in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, in January 2020 with an American raid, revealed to the authorities the person who was supposed to kill Bolton, and his identity was not revealed.
On Thursday, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani rejected the “ridiculous” US accusations. He said that “the US judicial authorities issued accusations without providing evidence.”
The US accusations come while Tehran is studying a settlement submitted by the European Union to revive the 2015 Iranian nuclear agreement, which has been stalled since the United States withdrew from it in 2018, at the request of former US President Donald Trump, who was his advisor at the time, Bolton.
In the past months, Iran has demanded the removal of the Revolutionary Guards from the US blacklist of “foreign terrorist organizations”, in exchange for a return to implementing its commitments in the nuclear agreement.
“It is not the first time that we have exposed an Iranian plot to retaliate on American soil, and we will work tirelessly to detect and prevent every such attempt,” Assistant US Attorney Matthew Olsen said.
digital currency
According to the indictment, at the end of 2021, Shahram Borsafi contacted a person who was supposed to carry out the assassination, but was in fact an informant for the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, “FBI”. Shahram Borsafi ordered him to open an account with a digital currency, then gave him the address of Donald Trump’s former adviser and asked him to implement the plan ahead of the first anniversary of Soleimani’s killing.
Soleimani was the architect of his country’s strategy in the Middle East, and the commander of the Quds Force, the unit responsible for foreign operations within the Revolutionary Guards. He was killed on January 3, 2020, in an American strike by a drone in Baghdad.
But after the anniversary date of Soleimani’s killing passed, Shahram Borsafi continued to pressure the informant to kill Bolton, promising him $1 million in exchange for a second character assassination, if the operation was successful.
The FBI issued a search warrant for Shahram Borsafi with several photos, two of which appear to be wearing Revolutionary Guard uniforms.
And the American judiciary stated that “during the exchange of conversation, the secret source referred several times to Borsafi’s connection to the Quds Force. Borsafi never denied it.”
Shahram Borsafi faces up to 25 years in prison, if arrested, which is unlikely because he may be in Iran.
Serious consequences
John Bolton considered the 2015 nuclear deal a “big strategic mistake.”
When he served as National Security Adviser under Donald Trump from April 2018 to September 2019, Bolton publicly supported Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the agreement aimed at ensuring the civilian character of Iran’s nuclear program.
The indictment asserted that Bolton was informed of the plot and cooperated with investigators.
John Bolton stressed, Thursday, that it is important to note “to what extent the Iranian government has carefully studied (this project) and participated in the planning.”
He said, via CNN, that this shows how “Tehran behaves in relation to its terrorist activities”, as well as how it conducts its “foreign policy.”
The current National Security Adviser at the White House, Jake Sullivan, warned on Twitter that Tehran would expose itself to “serious consequences” if it attacked US officials.
The US judiciary did not specify the identity of the second target, but the “Axios” website mentioned that he is the former foreign minister Mike Pompeo.
The website quoted a source close to the former foreign minister as saying that the Ministry of Justice confirmed to him “directly” that he was one of the targets.
Along with John Bolton, Pompeo was one of the main architects of the Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” policy on Iran.
(AFP)