Iranian Operative Charged in Plot to Murder John Bolton

Former National security adviser John Bolton gestures while speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, Sept. 30, 2019. (AP)
Former National security adviser John Bolton gestures while speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, Sept. 30, 2019. (AP)
TT
20

Iranian Operative Charged in Plot to Murder John Bolton

Former National security adviser John Bolton gestures while speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, Sept. 30, 2019. (AP)
Former National security adviser John Bolton gestures while speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, Sept. 30, 2019. (AP)

An Iranian operative has been charged in a plot to murder former Trump administration national security adviser John Bolton in presumed retaliation for a US airstrike that killed the country's most powerful general, offering hundreds of thousands of dollars to "eliminate" him, the Justice Department said Wednesday.

Shahram Poursafi, identified by US officials as a member of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, is currently wanted by the FBI on charges related to the murder-for-hire plot.

Prosecutors say the scheme started more than a year after Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard force and an architect of Tehran’s proxy wars in the Middle East, was killed in a targeted airstrike at Baghdad’s international airport in January 2020. After the strike, Bolton, who by then had left his White House post, tweeted, "Hope this is the first step to regime change in Tehran."

Poursafi, 45, offered $250,000 to people in Maryland and the District of Columbia to carry out the killing, including providing a work address, according to an FBI affidavit unsealed in federal court in Washington.

In a statement, Bolton thanked the FBI and Justice Department for their work in developing the case.

"While much cannot be said publicly right now, one point is indisputable: Iran’s rulers are liars, terrorists, and enemies of the United States," he said.

Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen, the Justice Department’s top national security official, said it was "not the first time we have uncovered Iranian plots to exact revenge against individuals on US soil and we will work tirelessly to expose and disrupt every one of these efforts."

The unsealing of the complaint comes two days after negotiators seeking to revive the Iran nuclear accord in Vienna closed on a "final text" of an agreement, with parties now consulting in their capitals on whether to agree to it.

The 2015 deal granted Iran sanctions relief in exchange for tight curbs on its atomic program. Since the US withdrew from the agreement under President Donald Trump, Iran has sped up its nuclear enrichment program. Bolton has been among the most hawkish critics of the deal and efforts by the Biden administration to rejoin it.

In his statement, he said “Iran’s nuclear-weapons and terrorist activities are two sides of the same coin” and asserted that America re-entering the failed 2015 Iran nuclear deal would be an unparalleled self-inflicted wound, to ourselves and our closest Middle East allies."



ICC Opens Inquiry into Hungary for Failing to Arrest Netanyahu

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán welcomes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Budapest earlier this month. (AFP)
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán welcomes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Budapest earlier this month. (AFP)
TT
20

ICC Opens Inquiry into Hungary for Failing to Arrest Netanyahu

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán welcomes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Budapest earlier this month. (AFP)
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán welcomes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Budapest earlier this month. (AFP)

Judges at the International Criminal Court want Hungary to explain why it failed to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he visited Budapest earlier this month.

In a filing released late Wednesday, The Hague-based court initiated non-compliance proceedings against Hungary after the country gave Netanyahu a red carpet welcome despite an ICC arrest warrant for crimes against humanity in connection with the war in Gaza.

During the visit, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán announced his country would quit the court, claiming on state radio that the ICC was “no longer an impartial court, not a court of law, but a political court.”

The Hungarian leader, regarded by critics as an autocrat and the EU’s most intransigent spoiler in the bloc’s decision-making, defended his decision to not arrest Netanyahu.

“We signed an international treaty, but we never took all the steps that would otherwise have made it enforceable in Hungary,” Orbán said at the time, referring to the fact that Hungary’s parliament never promulgated the court’s statute into Hungarian law.

Judges at the ICC have previously dismissed similar arguments.

The ICC and other international organizations have criticized Hungary’s defiance of the warrant against Netanyahu. Days before his arrival, the president of the court’s oversight body wrote to the government in Hungary reminding it of its “specific obligation to comply with requests from the court for arrest and surrender.”

A spokesperson for the ICC declined to comment on the non-compliance proceedings.

Hungary’s decision to leave the ICC, a process that will take at least a year to complete, will make it the sole non-signatory within the 27-member European Union. With 125 current signatory countries, only the Philippines and Burundi have ever withdrawn from the court as Hungary intends.

Hungary has until May 23 to submit evidence in its defense.