Iran on Thursday (August 11th) rejected US court claims of a plot led by a member of the Revolutionary Guards to assassinate former White House national security adviser John Bolton, calling them "
ridiculous
".
The US Department of Justice said Wednesday that an Iranian, Shahram Poursafi, had been charged in his absence for offering to pay individuals in the United States $300,000 to kill John Bolton.
"Unsubstantiated claims"
The plot, apparently intended to avenge the death of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, killed in January 2020 in Iraq in a strike ordered by then President Donald Trump, was revealed by the person supposed to assassinate John Bolton, according to this same source.
“
US judicial authorities have brought charges without providing valid evidence
,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani said in a statement.
“
This time, [the United States] wrote a scenario involving a character whose political career is over like Bolton
", he added.
According to the US Department of Justice, Shahram Poursafi came into contact in late 2021 with a person believed to be carrying out the assassination who was actually a federal police (FBI) informant.
The Iranian pressed her to put the plan into action before the second anniversary of Soleimani's death.
The powerful Iranian general, architect of his country's strategy in the Middle East, was the head of the Quds Force, the unit in charge of external operations within the Revolutionary Guards.
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Nasser Kanani further rejected "
baseless claims (...) made [...] to avoid responding to numerous terrorist crimes in which the US government was directly implicated, such as the cowardly assassination
" of Soleimani.
“
The Islamic Republic strongly warns against any action targeting Iranian citizens by resorting to ridiculous accusations
,” he added.
Current White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan warned Wednesday that Tehran faces "
serious consequences
if he attacked US officials.
The US accusations come as Tehran studies a compromise presented by the European Union to salvage the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, moribund since the 2018 US withdrawal at the behest of Donald Trump , then advised by John Bolton.