Asif Merchant, a Pakistani arrested for a plot to kill Donald Trump

 

Who is Asif Merchant, a Pakistani arrested for a plot to kill Donald Trump?

The United States has accused a Pakistani man, believed to have ties to Iran, of trying to assassinate American politicians. Federal prosecutors say Asif Merchant, 46, orchestrated a plot to kill an unidentified politician or US government official on US soil.

The case prompted the US government to increase security for former US President Donald Trump and other officials. Although the criminal complaint does not explicitly name Trump, several sources told reporters that one of the intended targets of the alleged plot was Trump.

Who is Asif Merchant?

Asif Merchant, also known as "Asif Raza Merchant", is a 46-year-old Pakistani national. He has two wives, one in Pakistan and one in Iran, and children in both countries. According to his travel records, Asif frequently traveled to Iran, Syria and Iraq, the US Department of Justice said.

How Asif conspired

Court documents say the plot included several elements: stealing documents or USB drives from a target's home, planning protests and killing a politician or government official.

Asif Merchant invented code names for each plot element: "T-shirt" for the protests, "flannel shirt" for the theft of the documents, "fleece jacket" for the murder, and "Thread Dye" for their meetings.

To lure the first caller, who informed the authorities, Merchant told him that he had an uncle in the "yarn dye" business in Pakistan and he could do business with him. To carry out his plans, Asif Merchant hired people he thought were assassins, but who were actually secret agents. He asked a government source he believed to be a hitman to explain how the "target" would die in different scenarios.

How his plan failed

Asif Merchant's plan failed because he tried to recruit FBI agents for the murder.

He was arrested on July 12 as he was preparing to board a plane to leave the country.

In mid-June, Merchant met with the people he believed to be murdered. They were undercover American law enforcement agents in New York.

He told them he wanted them to steal documents, stage demonstrations at political events and kill a "political figure".

The plot should have been carried out after he left the country and they told him who was the target in the last week of August or the first week of September, Merchant told the agents. The merchant arranged the payment of $5,000 in cash as an advance for the assassination services and successfully made this payment on June 21.

After this transaction, he planned to leave the country on July 12, 2024, the day before the assassination of Donald Trump. However, law enforcement intervened and arrested him before he could leave, the court document says.