A Pakistani businessman accused of plotting to assassinate Donald Trump testified in a Brooklyn federal court on Wednesday that he was coerced into the scheme by Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, which threatened his family in Tehran. Asif Merchant, 47, faces terrorism and murder-for-hire charges and took the unusual step of testifying in his own defense, speaking through an Urdu translator.
Merchant told jurors he went along with the plot only out of fear for his wife and adopted daughter in Tehran. He claimed his Iranian handler, Revolutionary Guard official Mehrdad Yousef, directed him to travel to the US in 2024 and recruit criminals for a four-part operation: staging protests, stealing documents, laundering money, and arranging a murder. Yousef named three potential targets—Trump, then-President Joe Biden, and former Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley—but did not specify which one to kill.
The supposed hitmen Merchant paid $5,000 in cash were undercover FBI agents. A recording played in court captured him telling them he needed someone to “maybe, you can, say, kill someone”—a political figure whose identity he said he had not yet been given. Merchant testified he knew he was being watched after immigration agents searched him in Houston, but he pressed on because he believed Iranian intelligence would harm his family if he wavered.
Federal prosecutors rejected Merchant's duress defense, noting in a filing that there was no evidence supporting it. They pointed out that Merchant acknowledged knowing he was working with a designated terrorist organization and was recorded mapping out the plot on a napkin in a Queens hotel room. The prosecution's case relied heavily on intelligence from Nadeem Ali, an acquaintance who had been secretly working as an FBI informant.
Merchant was arrested on 12 July 2024 in Texas as he prepared to fly back to Pakistan. The trial opened last week, just before US and Israeli strikes on Iran killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and reportedly over 1,000 others. On Wednesday, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said a US strike had also killed the Iranian official the Trump administration says ran the 2024 assassination plot. Iran has denied targeting Trump or other American officials.
