The Foreign Office spokesperson on Tuesday said Islamabad was in touch with Washington for further details on reports of a Pakistani national’s alleged involvement in a foiled assassination attempt on former U.S. president Donald Trump.
In a statement, spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said they were aware of media reports about the case but were awaiting further details before commenting. She noted that statements of U.S. officials also indicated the investigation was ongoing.
“Before giving our formal reaction, we also need to be sure of the antecedents of the individual in question,” she added.
According to a statement issued by the U.S. Justice Department, Asif Merchant, 46, was attempting to recruit Americans for a plot retaliating against the U.S. killing of Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ top commander Qassem Soleiman in 2020. The criminal complaint alleges Merchant spent time in Iran before traveling to the U.S. and has charged him with murder for hire in federal court in New York’s Brooklyn borough. A federal judge ordered him detained on July 16, according to court records.
In mid-June, per the complaint, Merchant met with purported hitmen, who were actually undercover U.S. law enforcement officers in New York. He advised them he was looking for three services: theft of documents, arranging protests at political rallies, and killing a “political person.” He said the hitmen would receive instructions on who to kill either in the last week of August or the first week of September, after Merchant had departed the U.S.
He then began arranging to obtain $5,000 in cash to pay the would-be hitmen as an advance payment for the assassination, which he eventually received with assistance from an individual overseas. Merchant subsequently made flight arrangements and planned to leave the U.S. on July 12. However, he was placed under arrest before he could leave the country.
“For years, the Justice Department has been working aggressively to counter Iran’s brazen and unrelenting efforts to retaliate against American public officials for the killing of Iranian General Soleimani,” read a statement issued by Attorney General Merrick Garland.
Reportedly, Merchant is a Pakistani national with alleged ties to Iran.
Meanwhile, CNN cited a U.S. official as claiming FBI investigators believed that former president Donald Trump, who approved the drone strike on Soleimani, and other current and former U.S. government officials were the intended targets of the plot.