Iran rejects man’s US assassination plot guilty plea

TEHRAN: Iran’s foreign ministry yesterday rejected a guilty plea by an Iranian-American man that he conspired with Iranian officials to kill the Saudi ambassador in Washington.

Manssor Arbabsiar pleaded guilty on Wednesday at the New York federal court to attempting to hire a Mexican drug gang for $1.5m to blow up the Saudi envoy in a restaurant he frequented in Washington. But Iran’s foreign ministry questioned the plea and rejected the notion that “any Iranian organisation” had any role in the plot.

“Pleading guilty after initial denial and a year (in custody) is a sign of  psychological pressure and the abnormal situation of US jails and solitary confinement there,” its spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said in a statement reported by the state broadcaster’s website.

“This ridiculous scenario was designed by American officials a year ago while the man arrested denied all charges. Some (non-American) officials and political pundits have said it is unreal and likened it to a Hollywood scenario,” he said.

Mehmanparast also condemned what he called “the misuse of the judicial system and designing absurd and baseless plots in the current political state in the US,” without elaborating.

AFP