http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-15269348
On September 29th the U.S. arrested Manssor Arbabsiar in the JFK airport in New York under high suspicion of his plot to bomb the Saudi Embassay in Washington DC. For many months now law enforcement and intelligence communities have been working on figuring out what Arbabsiar and his collegue in Iran have been up to. They discovered that they were planning to kill the Saudian Ambassador in DC and quickly arrested Arbabsiar before he entered onto any airplane. Thanks to the efforts of law enforcement what could have been a disastorous event was avoided.
The United States isn't the only country worried and outraged about the threat of bombing from Iran; the UK has also stated that they will back up the US in punishing Iran for its actions 100%. The reason the Iran government, as a whole, is being blamed and not just the two specific bombers involved is because the two men were apart of the Iran's Quad Force and had been given direct orders. This plot, to many other countries, is being seen as "childish acts" on Iran's part.
After his arrest, Arbabsiar confessed his involvement with the plot, but his attorney claims he is planning to plead not guilty when he is officialy indicted. Arbabsiar and other men involved in this plot were said to have contacts with informants in the US Drug Enforcement Agency who lied about their involvement with Mexican Drug Cartels. The US also discovered that the Iranian government were paying the bombers 1.5 milion dollars for the assassination of Adel al-Jubeir (the Saudi ambassador).
Both Arbabsiar and Shakuri (the other bomber not arrested at JFK) have been charged with conspiracy to murder a foreign official, weapons conspiracy, and conspiracy to commit international terrorism charges.With all this evidence and information that intelligence agencies have collected I wonder why Arbabsiar would even bother pleading not guilty? Does the US government have any hard evidence (I couldn't find any information on this)?
After the alleged conspricacy to kill the Saudian Ambassador in Washington, DC was discovered Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton really cracked down on Iran, with the threat of new penalties. Iran already has a series of international sanctions. My question about this, to you, is what do you think an effective penalty could be for Iran and/or Arbabsiar? How can Hilary send out a strong enough message to make sure other countries realize not to mess with us?
:-)
