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Iran Issues Arrest Warrant for Trump for Killing General

Iran Issues Arrest Warrant for Donald Trump for Killing General

Iran has issued a warrant to arrest U.S. President Donald Trump and 35 others for the killing of a top Iranian general in January, the semi-official Mehr news agency reported.

“The 36 individuals who were involved in the assassination of Qassem Soleimani have been identified and they include political and military officials from the U.S. and other governments and the judiciary has ordered that a red notice be sought for them from the international police,” Mehr cited public prosecutor Ali Alghasi Mehr as saying in a judiciary meeting on Monday.

Alghasi Mehr didn’t explicitly name Interpol as having been notified and it’s not clear whether the organization has yet received a warrant from Iranian police. He said the individuals listed in the warrant are accused of murder and terrorism and that efforts to prosecute Trump, whom he described as the prime suspect, will continue after his presidency ends.

Interpol doesn’t get involved in political arrest requests.

“This is another political stunt by the Iranian regime,” U.S. Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook said at a news conference in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. “It doesn’t surprise us.”

Soleimani, who was the commander of the Quds Force, an elite unit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, was targeted in a U.S. drone strike in Baghdad on Jan. 3.

The incident brought the U.S. and Iran to the brink of war and was the most dangerous escalation in the current standoff between the countries since Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal two years ago and reimposed tough sanctions on Iran’s economy.

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.