The United States is offering a reward of up to $20 million for information leading to the arrest or conviction of an Iranian man accused of plotting to assassinate former US national security adviser John Bolton.
The Department of Justice said Shahram Poursafi of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) was arrested in Washington and Maryland from October 2021 to April 2022 in order to assassinate Bolton, a former top official of President Trump. He claims that he tried to hire criminals to do so. For $300,000.
US Paid On August 5, 2022, Mr. Poursafi accused him of being involved in a murder-for-hire plot and of providing material support to a cross-border murder plot. Last June, the Ministry of Finance designated him as a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist''. He remains at large.
“Mr. Poursafi told the would-be assassin, who had actually become a confidential source for U.S. agents, that he would give him a second assassination job if he completed the killing of Bolton,” the State Department press office said. release Thursday.
The bounty announcement came days after the Trump campaign announced that the former president had been briefed by intelligence officials about Iran's alleged assassination threat against him. A Pakistani national with ties to the Iranian government was indicted in early August on one count of plotting a political assassination in the United States.
Iranian Vice President Mohammad Javad Zarif denied accusations that Iran had tried to assassinate government critics abroad, speaking on NBC News. interview This week: “We're not assassinating people, but they actually assassinated a respected Iranian general.”
Qasem Soleimani, the commander in chief of the Revolutionary Guards, was killed in January 2020 in a drone strike authorized by then-President Trump. Bolton is a frequent critic of Iran and served as the former president's national security adviser from April 2018 to September 2019.
