March 15, 2019
Manssor Arbabsiar is sitting in a cell in the federal penitentiary at Yazoo City, Mississippi. He is 63 now, and is not expected to be released until 2033, when he will be 77 years old.
Arbabsiar was convicted in 2012 of trying to hire an assassin to kill the Saudi ambassador to the United States, Adel al-Jubeir, who is now the foreign minister of Saudi Arabia. Arbabsiar was put up to the scheme by a relative, who a senior officer in the Pasdaran.
Arbabsiar tried to contact a Mexican drug cartel to do the job by blowing up Jubeir’s favorite Washington restaurant while Jubeir was dining there. Unfortunately for Arbabsiar, the man he approached just happened to be an undercover agent for the US Drug Enforcement Administration.
The agent later told Arbabsiar that someone had cased the restaurant and that many others were likely to die in the planned bombing. The agent was wearing a recording device that caught Arbabsiar saying, “They want that guy done. If a hundred go with him, fuck ‘em.”
Arbabsiar was a naturalized American living in Texas at the time and working as a used car dealer.
At the trial, his defense presented two professional witnesses who testified that Arbabsiar suffered from bipolar disorder.
After his arrest, the FBI had him call his main Pasdar contact, Gholam Shakuri, who told him over the phone not to delay any further but to make sure the plan was carried out. The Iran Times has not been able to find any reference in the Iranian media to Shakuri in the years since the trial.
The agreement was to pay the Mexican drug cartel $1.5 million for the assassination.
Arbabsiar was arrested in 2011 and found guilty in 2013. He initially pleaded not guilty, but changed his plea in mid-trial.
