Iran's foreign ministry on Saturday described as "totally unfounded" US accusations of a plot by Tehran to assassinate president-elect Donald Trump.
The foreign ministry "rejects allegations that Iran is implicated in an assassination attempt targeting former or current American officials," spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said in a statement, after US prosecutors announced charges over the alleged plot.
The Justice Department on Friday disclosed an Iranian murder-for-hire plot to kill Trump, charging a man who said he had been tasked by a government official before this week's election with planning the assassination of the Republican president-elect.
Investigators were told of the plan to kill Trump by Farhad Shakeri, an accused Iranian government asset who spent time in American prisons for robbery and who authorities say maintains a network of criminal associates enlisted by Tehran for surveillance and murder-for-hire plots, The Associated Press reported.
Shakeri told the FBI that a contact in Iran's Revolutionary Guard instructed him this past September to set aside other work he was doing and assemble a plan within seven days to surveil and ultimately kill Trump, according to a criminal complaint unsealed in federal court in Manhattan.
