The US Department of Justice on Wednesday unsealed an indictment against an Iranian national it accuses of commissioning a hit on former national security adviser John Bolton. Rumors of the plot first appeared in the media in March, along with insinuations that the Biden administration did not want to move ahead with the charges due to the ongoing nuclear talks with Tehran.
According to the DOJ, a member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) was charged with commissioning a murder-for-hire and providing material support to a transnational murder plot. An affidavit signed by FBI Special Agent Randi Beck and submitted to a US magistrate judge on August 5 identifies the defendant as Shahram Poursafi, 45, with a known alias of Mehdi Rezayi.
Starting in October 2021, Poursafi allegedly attempted to arrange the murder of Bolton, “likely in retaliation” to the January 2020 drone assassination of IRGC-Quds Force General Qassem Soleimani. The DOJ says he offered $300,000 to a US individual to carry out the hit. However, the affidavit identifies the purported hitman as a “confidential human source” – an informant – for the FBI.