The shift will likely be a boon to the Islamic Republic. If Arbabsiar’s case had gone to trial in January as planned, Tehran would have faced weeks of news stories with testimony day-after-day detailing its alleged involvement in the assassination plot.
Judge John F. Keenan last year said the trial would likely last three to four weeks.
Instead, the tale of the plot became a one-day story of a brief courtroom appearance. On January 23, there will also be a one-day story as Arbabsiar is sentenced to what could, at maximum, be a 25-year prison term, a virtual live sentence for Arbabsiar, who is now 58 and would be 82 at the end of such a sentence (including the one-year he has been in jail so far awaiting trial).
The prosecution, however, dropped some of the charges against Arbabsiar in exchange for his guilty plea. The dropped charges could have brought a life sentence. It wasn’t known if Arbabsiar had made a deal with the prosecution to seek a lesser sentence. That will be known at the sentencing in January. The judge, however, is not required to accept a deal the prosecution makes with an accused.
Judge Keenan repeatedly asked Arbabsiar whether he intended to kill the Saudi ambassador. And Arbabsiar repeatedly said he did.
Arbabsiar spoke in English and did not use a translator.
He has grown a beard in his year in jail. He smiled several times in the courtroom, Including at the courtroom artists who were seated in the jury box as they drew.
Assistant US Attorney Edward Kim, who was the chief prosecutor, asked Arbabsiar: “Were the people you agreed with in this plot officials of the Iranian military?”
Arbabsiar said, “Yes, part of it,” presumably referring to the Qods Force, which is a branch of the Pasdaran (Revolutionary Guard).
The brief courtroom appearance got limited coverage in the US media. The New York Times buried the story in its New York local news section. The Washington Post put it on Page Nine. The Wall Street Journal, however, put it on Page Two.
Arbabsiar is a naturalized American who makes his home in Texas. He has moved around Texas over the years and at one time owned a used car dealership.
Many people were skeptical of the charges when they were first announced a year ago. The assassination plot as outlined by US prosecutors was laughably amateurish, while Tehran had a reputation for carrying out sophisticated and skilled terror plots inside Iraq.
But within months, a series of other plots were exposed around Asia. The one in Thailand took the award for amateurishness with three bombers first having themselves photographed in a bar with prostitutes. Then they blew the roof off the house where they were making their bombs. Fleeing, one of the bombers threw a bomb at pursuing police, only to have it bounce off something and drop back at his feet, blowing up and blowing off his legs.
After that, Arbabsiar’s plot seemed the epitome of professionalism by comparison.
In Thursday’s brief courtroom appearance in US District Court in Manhattan, Arbabsiar admitted to the outline of the plot as previously described by prosecutors, with one factual change.
Prosecutors had said Arbabsiar had been tasked by the Qods Force in Tehran to seek out a Mexican drug cartel and offer to pay it to kill the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States. But the druggie Arbabsiar contacted was actually a US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) plant inside a Mexican drug cartel.
He was fitted out with a recording device and many, though not all, of his later conversations with Arbabsiar were taped.
But, in his court appearance last week, Arbabsiar said he had initially proposed that Saudi Ambassador Adel Al-Jubair be kidnapped rather than killed.
The prosecution acknowledged that it was the DEA plant who first suggested murder rather than kidnapping, saying that would be a lot easier. Arbabsiar said he checked back with Tehran, which approved the switch to an assassination.
The plan was to blow up Café Milano, an upscale restaurant in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, DC, while Jubair was having lunch there. Café Milano is a favorite haunt of the diplomat.
US investigators also found the plot amateurish and were suspicious that Arbabsiar might have created the plot on his own. Therefore, after they arrested him, they demanded proof of Tehran’s involvement. They induced Arbabsiar to telephone his main contact in Tehran and recorded the Qods Force officer telling Arbabsiar to get on with the murder plot quickly.
Despite the questions raised by some, the UN General Assembly didn’t question the charges and even approved a resolution last year demanding that the Islamic Republic cooperate with the United States in its investigation of the plot.
The Iranian government has not done so.
In Tehran Saturday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehman-Parast said Arbabsiar had been coerced into confessing after a year of mental and physical torture endured while in solitary confinement.
“Pleading guilty after an initial denial and a year in custody is a sign of psychological pressure and the abnormal situation of US jails and solitary confinement there,” he said.
“This ridiculous scenario was designed by American officials a year ago while the man arrested denied all charges. Some officials and political pundits have said it is unreal and likened it to a Hollywood script.”
Very unusually, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenehi commented on the case. Some analysts suspected he spoke out because the regime was worried the case might prompt US retaliation of some sort.
Khamenehi said, “If US officials are operating under some delusions, they must know that any unsuitable action, whether political or military, will meet a resolute response from the Iranian people.”
He said the United States invented the charges in order to divert attention from its economic woes and from the Occupy Wall Street Movement.
President Ahmadi-nejad also spoke out. “Iran is a civilized country and doesn’t need to resort to assassination,” he said. Addressing the United States, he said, “The culture of terror belongs to you.”