{"id":4264,"date":"2026-03-05T04:33:06","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T04:33:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/4264\/"},"modified":"2026-03-05T04:33:06","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T04:33:06","slug":"tehran-forced-pakistani-man-to-kill-donald-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/4264\/","title":{"rendered":"Tehran forced Pakistani man to kill Donald Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">The Justice Department accused Asif Merchant of trying to recruit people in the United States in the plan targeting Trump and other US politicians in retaliation for Washington&#8217;s killing of the Corps&#8217; top commander, Qassem Soleimani.<\/p>\n<p>The Corps has a central role in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jpost.com\/middle-east\/iran-news\/article-888889\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Iran<\/a>, with its combination of military and economic power and an intelligence network.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I was not wanting to do this so willingly,&#8221; the New York Times quoted Merchant as telling a court during his trial for terrorism and murder-for-hire charges, adding that he participated to protect his family in Tehran.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">Prosecutors rejected Merchant&#8217;s claim, citing a &#8220;lack of evidentiary support for a true duress or coercion,&#8221; according to a letter sent on Tuesday to the judge in the case dating from 2024.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">According to the newspaper, Merchant said he had never been ordered to kill a specific person but that his Iranian handler named three people in the course of conversations in the Iranian capital.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">In addition to Trump, these were Joe Biden, the president at the time; and Nikki Haley, who unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination for the 2024 presidential election.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">Lawyers for Merchant did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The White House did not immediately comment.<\/p>\n<p>The trial started last week, days before Trump ordered strikes on Iran carried out with Israel that killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jpost.com\/middle-east\/iran-news\/article-888868\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ali Khamenei<\/a> and top officials in the Middle Eastern nation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">Trump cited an alleged Iranian \u200bplot when he spoke to ABC News on Sunday about a joint US-Israeli operation that killed Khamenei, saying, &#8220;I got him before he got me.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">Tehran has denied accusations that it targeted Trump and other US officials.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Justice Department accused Asif Merchant of trying to recruit people in the United States in the plan&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4265,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[89,38,34,424,802,3070,212,92,1497,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-4264","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tehran","8":"tag-ayatollah-ali-khamenei","9":"tag-donald-trump","10":"tag-iran","11":"tag-irgc","12":"tag-joe-biden","13":"tag-nikki-haley","14":"tag-operation-epic-fury","15":"tag-operation-roaring-lion","16":"tag-qassem-soleimani","17":"tag-tehran"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116174704194300156","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4264"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4264\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}