A Pakistani terrorist recruited by Iranian spies was convicted Friday of cooking up a half-baked plot to kill President Trump, detailing the plan with an absurdly crude drawing.
Asif Merchant, 48, was found guilty of murder-for-hire and terrorism charges after a Brooklyn jury — which deliberated for less than two hours — rejected his claim that he was forced into the bungling murder scheme because Iran had “threatened” his family.
FBI secret cameras caught Merchant in June 2024 outlining his plans to whack then-candidate Trump at a GOP rally during a meeting with a would-be recruit inside the Floral Park Motor Lodge in Queens.
Using a piece of lined notebook paper, the convicted plotter drew a large rectangle to denote the crowd, a smaller box for the stage and an arrow to describe where the candidate would be standing.
Merchant then grabbed a creamsicle colored vape and placed it on top of the arrow.
“This is the target. How will it die?” he told his purported partner-in-crime — who, unbeknownst to him, had already snitched to the feds, trial evidence revealed.
The former banker, who had launched failed banana and clothing export businesses, later bizarrely handed just $5,000 each as an advance payment to two undercover FBI agents posing as hitmen. He was arrested in August 2024 as he attempted to leave the country before the purported assassination would unfold.
Merchant took the stand in his own defense and said that his Iranian handler sent him to the US in April of that year with a series of tasks, including “maybe to have somebody murdered,” and named the top three candidates for the US presidency at the time as possible targets.
“He did not tell me exactly who it is, but he named three people to me: Donald Trump, Joe Biden and Nikki Haley,” Merchant told the jury.
Merchant testified that he expected to receive up to $1 million depending on his mission’s outcome.
But his harebrained assassination plan went nowhere, after the FBI set up a sting operation based on a tip from Merchant’s recruit, who testified at trial using the alias “Nadeem Ali.”
Merchant claimed on the stand that he knew he would be arrested ahead of the hitmen meeting, and that “I didn’t think I would be able to be successful.”
But during cross-examination, he admitted that he knew his handler was part of a group US officials classify as terrorists, and that he had believed the FBI agents were real contract killers.
The convicted plan hatcher, who has separate families in both Pakistan and Iran, claimed that he was forced into the scheme because his Iran-based relatives were threatened.
“He had family in Iran who he thought was in danger. He felt like he had no choice but to play this out. But from that point on, it’s what it was: a play,” defense lawyer Avi Moskowitz — who described the purported kill plot as “ridiculous” — told jurors in closing statements Friday morning.
But an FBI agent who questioned Merchant after his arrest told jurors that he hadn’t mentioned any threats back then. Instead, Merchant had talked about killing Trump for money and as revenge for the US drone strike that killed prominent Iranian military leader Qassem Soleimani in 2020, during Trump’s first term, the agent testified.
The trial unfolded against the backdrop of the US and Israeli militaries launching an unprecedented military offensive that has killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and dozens of other top Iranian officials and led to an escalating war in the Middle East.
Merchant faces up to life in prison at his sentencing.
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