2026年3月6日 / 美国东部时间晚上9:13 / 哥伦比亚广播公司/美联社
一名试图雇佣杀手暗杀美国政客的巴基斯坦企业家周五在法庭上被定罪，这起案件揭示了伊朗支持的阴谋在美国本土实施的指控。
随着伊朗在中东的战争局势升级，阿斯夫·默罕默德（Asif Merchant）在美国法庭承认，他在2024年总统竞选期间试图策划一起暗杀行动——这一阴谋在实施前就被美国调查人员迅速挫败。
布鲁克林的一个陪审团认定默罕默德犯有恐怖主义和雇佣谋杀罪。他最高可能面临终身监禁。
经过短短几个小时的审议，陪审团作出裁决，此前为期一周的审判包括默罕默德本人的惊人证词。
![Asif Merchant的照片，由司法部在支持逮捕令的投诉中提供。美联社]
默罕默德告诉陪审团，他正在执行来自伊朗强大准军事组织伊斯兰革命卫队（Revolutionary Guard）一名联络人的指示。据默罕默德称，该联络人从未明确指定目标，但提及了包括特朗普总统、前总统拜登以及曾短暂参与竞选的前联合国大使妮基·黑利在内的名字。
伊朗政府否认试图杀害美国官员。
这一初步阴谋在默罕默德向一位熟人展示他的计划时败露——他用餐巾上的物品描绘了一场集会上的枪击事件。他请求此人帮助他雇佣刺客。相反，他被介绍给了秘密录制他言行的FBI卧底特工，这位熟人也参与了此事。
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默罕默德告诉所谓的杀手，他需要能够杀害”某位政治人物”的服务，并在曼哈顿一辆停放的汽车中向他们支付了5000美元现金。
“此人抵达美国后试图杀害特朗普总统——但迎接他的是美国执法部门的强大力量，”美国司法部长帕姆·邦迪（Pam Bondi）在定罪后发布的声明中表示。
默罕默德的律师亚伯拉罕·莫斯科维茨（Avraham Moskowitz）尚未立即回复美联社寻求置评的消息。
“默罕默德试图雇佣他人杀害一名政客或美国政府官员，但FBI和我们的合作伙伴阻止了这一致命阴谋，”FBI局长卡什·帕特尔（Kash Patel）在声明中表示。”这并非伊朗首次试图在美国本土伤害我们的公民；其他此类企图也都失败了。”
47岁的默罕默德在进入服装和其他行业之前，曾在巴基斯坦银行工作数十年。他在巴基斯坦和伊朗各有一个家庭，有时会因服装生意访问美国。
默罕默德作证称，大约三年前他结识了一名伊斯兰革命卫队情报官员。他表示，该联络人向他提供了反侦察培训，并指派了包括暗杀计划在内的任务。
他坚持称，为了保护在伊朗的亲人，他必须执行联络人的指令。被告称，他只是不情愿地参与了行动，但认为自己会在有人被杀害前被逮捕并向当局解释情况。
“我只是顺着做了，”他通过法庭翻译用乌尔都语说道。
检察官强调，默罕默德承认代表美国认定的外国恐怖组织——伊斯兰革命卫队采取行动实施暗杀计划，并且他没有主动向当局自首。
相反，他在2024年7月12日准备飞往巴基斯坦时被捕。调查人员称，搜查期间发现了一张手写纸条，其中包含了阴谋各环节的密码，哥伦比亚广播公司新闻此前曾报道。
默罕默德被捕的前一天，宾夕法尼亚州巴特勒发生了一起针对特朗普的无关暗杀未遂事件。官方称，巴特勒的枪手似乎单独行动，但他们一直追踪来自伊朗的对特朗普生命的威胁，伊朗伊斯兰共和国称这一说法”毫无根据且恶意中伤”。
当默罕默德随后与FBI特工交谈以探讨合作协议的可能性时，他并未提及自己是出于保护家人的恐惧而行动。
检察官辩称，他无法支持其受胁迫行为的辩护。默罕默德试图说服陪审员，他只是认为特工不会相信他，因为他们似乎”认为我是某种超级间谍”，而他声称自己”绝对不是”。
Man convicted in plot to assassinate Trump that was tied to Iran’s paramilitary
March 6, 2026 / 9:13 PM EST / CBS/AP
A Pakistani business owner who tried to hire hit men to kill a U.S. politician was convicted Friday in a trial that showcased allegations of Iran-backed plotting on American soil.
As the Iran war unfolded in the Mideast, Asif Merchant acknowledged in a U.S. court that he sought to put an assassination in motion during the 2024 presidential campaign — a plot that was quickly disrupted by American investigators before it had a chance to proceed.
A jury in Brooklyn convicted Merchant on terrorism and murder for hire charges. He faces up to life in prison.
The verdict after only a couple hours of deliberations followed a weeklong trial that included remarkable testimony from Merchant himself.
A photo of Asif Merchant, provided by the Justice Department in the complaint supporting the arrest warrant. AP
Merchant told the jury he was carrying out instructions from a contact in the Islamic Republic’s powerful paramilitary Revolutionary Guard. According to Merchant, the handler never specified a target but broached names including President Trump, then-President Joe Biden and Nikki Haley, the former U.N. ambassador who was also in the race for a time.
The Iranian government has denied trying to kill U.S. officials.
The nascent plot fell apart after Merchant showed an acquaintance what he had in mind by using objects on a napkin to depict a shooting at a rally. He asked the man to help him hire assassins. Instead, he was introduced to undercover FBI agents who were secretly recording him, as had the acquaintance.
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Merchant told the supposed hit men he needed services that could include killing “some political person” and paid them $5,000 in cash in a parked car in Manhattan.
“This man landed on American soil hoping to kill President Trump — instead, he was met with the might of American law enforcement,” U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement released after the conviction.
Merchant’s attorney, Avraham Moskowitz, didn’t immediately reply to a message from the Associated Press seeking comment.
“Merchant tried to hire someone to kill a politician or a U.S. government official, but the FBI and our partners stopped that deadly plot,” FBI Director Kash Patel said in a statement. “This was not the first attempt by Iran to harm our citizens on U.S. soil; the other efforts also failed.”
Merchant, 47, worked for Pakistani banks for decades before going into clothing and other businesses. He has two families, in Pakistan and Iran, and he sometimes visited the U.S. for his garment business.
Merchant testified that he met a Revolutionary Guard intelligence operative about three years ago. The contact gave him countersurveillance training and assignments including the assassination scheme, Merchant said.
He maintained that he had to do his handler’s bidding to protect loved ones in Iran. The defendant said he reluctantly went through the motions but thought he’d be arrested and explain his situation to authorities before anyone was killed.
“I was going along with it,” he said, speaking in Urdu through a court interpreter.
Prosecutors emphasized that Merchant admitted taking steps to enact the plan on behalf of the Revolutionary Guard, which the U.S. considers a foreign terrorist organization, and he didn’t proactively go to authorities.
Instead, he was packing for a flight to Pakistan when he was arrested on July 12, 2024. During a search, investigators said they found a handwritten note that contained the codewords for the various aspects of the plot, CBS Newspreviously reported.
Merchant was arrested a day before an unrelated attempt on Mr. Trump’s life in Butler, Pennsylvania. Officials said it appeared the Butler gunman acted alone, but that they had been tracking a threat on Mr. Trump’s life from Iran, a claim that the Islamic Republic called “unsubstantiated and malicious.”
When Merchant subsequently spoke to FBI agents to explore the possibility of a cooperation agreement, he didn’t say he had acted out of fear for his family.
Prosecutors argued that he didn’t back up a defense of acting under duress. Merchant sought to persuade jurors he simply didn’t think the agents would believe him because they seemed to “think that I am some type of super-spy,” which he said he was “absolutely not.”
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