ISLAMABAD: A Pakistani citizen has been arrested in the US on the charge of planning to assassinate senior politicians including former president Donald Trump.
American prosecutors said that 46-year-old Asif Merchant was planning to hit his targets in the US possibly in connivance with his accomplices in the government of Iran. He was arrested before he flew out of the US on July 12.
During the investigation, it transpired that Merchant had visited Iran and Iraq frequently. He has two wives and children, in Pakistan and Iran.
Merchant was trapped by FBI agents who pretended to be hired assassins to carry out his plot. According to the Justice Department, Merchant had planned to kill government officials or senior politicians.
Police in the US however said that Merchant had no role in the recent attack on the former president Donald Trump. They said that the suspect had reached the US in April to hire assassin to murder top US officials.
Meanwhile, Foreign Office spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch in a statement in Islamabad said that Pakistan was following the case after media reports highlighted a Pakistani citizen’s arrest for allegedly planning to assassinate US politicians and senior officials.
She said that Pakistan’s embassy in Washington was collecting details about the case.
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