By Admin 
A Pakistani citizen has made a big claim amidst the ongoing conflict between America-Israel and Iran. He says that he was given contract by Iranian intelligence agents to assassinate US President Donald Trump, former President Joe Biden and US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley. Pakistani citizen Asif Merchant made these claims in the Brooklyn Federal Courtroom on Wednesday (March 4, 2026), declaring himself innocent.
According to the report of The New York Post, Asif Merchant was arrested in August 2024. He is accused of offering 5 thousand dollars i.e. about Rs 4.6 lakh to two people for this work. He thought that these people were contract killers, whereas they were FBI agents.
My family was receiving threats, Asif Merchant said
Asif Merchant declared himself innocent and said that he was forced to do this work. Threats were issued to his family, after which he was left with no option. Asif Merchant also claims that in the first year, in late 2022 or early 2023, he voluntarily came forward to work with Iranian agents. At that time he had helped these people in money laundering to avoid US sanctions.
Asif Merchant told that earlier he used to work in a bank. He had a business of exporting bananas, which was later closed. He told that in April 2024, an Iranian handler contacted him and instructed him to go to America. He also said that he might have to kill someone there. He told in his testimony that he was later told that his targets could be Trump, Biden and Nikki Haley.
‘There was a plan to kill Trump before the US elections’, claims Asif Merchant.
This is the time when presidential elections were to be held in America at the end of 2024 and it was considered a close contest between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Haley had dropped out of the presidential election race just a month ago. Asif revealed the name of his Iranian handler as Mehrdad Yusuf, who according to him is a member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Yusuf instructed him to plot the murder and obtain unknown documents.
One wife and three children of Asif Merchant live in Pakistan, while the other wife and daughter live in Iran. He told that Yusuf had threatened him about his wife and daughter in Iran. Once Yusuf reached Asif’s house without informing him and while talking, he started threatening him by showing him a gun. Asif Merchant told the jury that his family was in danger so he was forced to obey Yusuf. However, Asif claims that he did not carry out this conspiracy intentionally.
The conspiracy was not carried out intentionally, Pakistani citizen said
Asif says that he feared that he would be caught before the plan was completed and he did not carry out the conspiracy deliberately. He also said that he had offered only Rs 4.6 lakh for the murder because he knew that no one would be ready to do this work for such a small amount.
Asif Merchant may get life imprisonment
Asif said that he wanted to tell the American government about this plan. He told the court that he was aware that he would be caught and his secret would be revealed. He said that he wanted to tell the American government. He thought that by doing this he would get a green card. Now the prosecutor will do cross examination in this case on Thursday. If Asif Merchant is found guilty, he may be sentenced to life imprisonment.
In the initial trials, a video of Asif from Queens Motel of June 2024, which was captured by FBI agents, was also played. In this, he is seen planning to murder the Republican Party leader. Investigators believe he was talking about Trump here.