Pakistani man pleads not guilty to US assassination plot charges

By Luc Cohen

NEW YORK (Reuters) -A Pakistani man with alleged ties to Iran pleaded not guilty on Monday to charges stemming from an alleged plot to assassinate an American politician in retaliation for the killing of Iran's Revolutionary Guards top commander Qassem Soleimani.

Asif Merchant, 46, entered his plea to one count of attempting to commit terrorism across national boundaries and one count of murder for hire at a hearing before U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert Levy in Brooklyn.

The judge ordered that Merchant be detained pending trial.

Federal prosecutors say Merchant spent time in Iran before traveling to the United States to recruit people for the plot.

Merchant told a confidential informant he also planned to steal documents from one target and organize protests in the United States, prosecutors said.

The defendant named Donald Trump as a potential target but had not conceived the scheme as a plan to assassinate the former president, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Court papers do not name the alleged targets, and no attacks were made. As president, Trump had in 2020 approved the drone strike on Soleimani.

There are no suggestions that Merchant was tied to an apparent assassination attempt on Trump at his Florida golf course on Sunday, or a separate shooting of the Republican presidential candidate at a rally in Pennsylvania in July.

Merchant wore an olive-colored prison T-shirt on top of an orange undershirt to his hearing, and sported a salt-and-pepper beard.

He is being held at Brooklyn's Metropolitan Detention Center, following his July 15 arrest in Texas.

Defense lawyer Avraham Moskowitz objected at the hearing to the jail conditions.

He said Merchant was being held in isolation, had been allowed out for exercise only once in two months, and had lost 15 to 20 pounds (6.8 to 9.1 kg) because jail officials would not serve a halal diet appropriate for a Shi'ite Muslim.

"It is literally torture," Moskowitz said.

Prosecutor Sara Winik said she would speak with the Bureau of Prisons to ensure Merchant received an adequate diet.

The bureau said it "takes seriously our duty to protect the individuals entrusted in our custody," and said halal meals were available at the facility.

Iran's mission to the United Nations said in August that the "modus operandi" described in Merchant's court papers ran contrary to Tehran's policy of "legally prosecuting the murder of General Soleimani."

(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)