Reward offered to Iranian involved in alleged Bolton assassination plot

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 U.S. national security adviser John Bolton .

The Justice Department alleges that Shahram Poursafi, a member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), attempted to hire people to assassinate Bolton, a former senior Trump White House official, between October 2021 and April 2022 in Washington and Maryland on exchange. for $300,000.

The United States indicted Poursafi on August 5, 2022, accusing him of being involved in a murder-for-hire plot and providing material support for a transnational murder plot. The Treasury Department designated him a “specially designated global terrorist” in June last year. He remains at large.

“Poursafi told the would-be assassin – who actually became a confidential source for US investigators – that once he completed the Bolton murder, he would have a second assassination job for him to do,” the State Department’s press office said in a statement Thursday.

The reward announcement comes days after the Trump campaign said the ex-president had been briefed by intelligence officials on Iran’s alleged assassination threats against him. In early August, a Pakistani national with ties to the Iranian government was indicted on one count of conspiracy to commit political assassination in the United States.

Iranian Vice President Mohammad Javad Zarif rejected accusations that Iran attempted to assassinate government critics abroad, telling NBC News this week: “We don’t assassinate people, but the fact is that they assassinated a revered Iranian general. »

Qassem Soleimani, a top IRGC general, was killed in a January 2020 drone strike authorized by then-President Trump. Bolton, a frequent critic of Iran, served as Trump’s national security adviser from April 2018 to September 2019.

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