Pakistani businessman Asif Merchant, who tried to hire hit men to kill a political figure, potentially President Trump, was found guilty Friday of murder-for-hire and terrorism charges — despite his claims that his Iranian intelligence handler forced him into the scheme by threatening his family.
A federal jury in Brooklyn needed just two hours to convict Merchant, 47, after hearing from a confidential informant and two undercover FBI agents who posed as Mafia contract killers. The defendant himself also testified.
“Iran’s terrorist regime sent Asif Merchant here to sow mayhem and murder,” stated U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella. “Thanks to the vigilance of our law enforcement partners, his scheme ended in failure. Today, with Merchant’s conviction, that failure is complete.”
Merchant, who was recruited to become an operative of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC, was arrested in July 2024, after he traveled to the U.S. to set up a political assassination at a campaign rally.
“Although we are disappointed in the result, we are grateful for the jury’s careful attention and hard work,” Christopher Neff, Merchant’s defense lawyer, told The News. “Nevertheless, as Judge Komittee noted, there are complex and significant legal issues yet to be decided. We remain confident that we will ultimately achieve a favorable result for Mr. Merchant.”
He asked a longtime acquaintance in the New York Pakistani community to help him find criminals to hire, but that acquaintance turned confidential governmental informant and steered him toward two FBI agents, whom he handed an initial $5,000 payment to after they presented themselves as killers for hire.
Merchant was caught on hidden video in a hotel room on June 4, using an unfolded napkin on a table to map out the assassination, and placing a creamsicle-colored vape on the napkin as he said, “This is the target. How will it die?” And his conversations with the undercover feds were caught on tape.
When it came time to mount a defense, Merchant took the stand himself, telling the jurors that he expected to be arrested from the moment he landed in the U.S. two months earlier. He claimed he was going through the motions, afraid that his IRGC handler who gave him his mission would hurt his family in Iran. Merchant has two wives and two families, one in Pakistan, the other in Iran.
“I was not wanting to do this so willingly,” he said, explaining that he planned to cooperate with the feds as soon as he was arrested, and hoped the FBI would help get green cards for his family.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Nina Gupta worked to dismantle that defense on cross examination, getting him to admit every element of the crimes he’s charged with, and having him admit he knew the U.S. considered the IRGC, which he called “Sepah,” a terrorist agency when he worked for it.
“As regards with what America has called it, yes. It is a terrorist organization. That is correct. And I was working for Sepah. That is also correct,” he said on the stand.
He admitted he never realized his acquaintance, the confidential informant, was working for the feds, and he thought that the two undercover FBI agents were actually hit men.
Merchant never gave the agents Trump’s name as the potential target, but prosecutors showed evidence he was looking up locations of Trump rallies. He also shared memes on Faebook in 2020, in the days after a U.S. drone strike killed one of the Iranian regime’s top generals, Qasem Soleimani, showing Trump’s decapitated head and the president digging his own grave plot.
He testified that his handler in April 2024 identified three possible targets, Trump, then-President Joe Biden, and Nikki Haley, who had run in the Republican presidential primary.
Merchant made three statements to the FBI in the hopes of securing a cooperation agreement, but he never mentioned anything about his family being threatened, FBI case agent Jacqueline Smith testified Thursday.
He also thought, incorrectly, that Iran had been behind the failed assassination attempt on Trump at a Butler, Penn. rally on July 13, 2024, just a day after his arrest, Smith testified, telling the FBI, “He said that he thought that Iran was responsible for that, because that’s the same thing he was sent here to do.”
He faces a potential life sentence.
