Iran issued an arrest warrant for President Donald Trump and 35 other officials who, according to Iran, “who have been involved or ordered the assassination of Hajj Qassem.”
Hajj Qassem is an alias for Iranian’s top General Qasem Soleimani.
According to The Washington Times:
Iranian officials said “red alerts” already have been issued for Mr. Trump and 35 other officials and that Tehran is seeking the help of Interpol to apprehend them. Iran did not name the other 35 officials but said that Mr. Trump “stands at the top of the list and will be prosecuted” as soon as he leaves office.
“Thirty-six individuals who have been involved or ordered the assassination of Hajj Qassem, including the political and military officials of the U.S. and other governments, have been identified and arrest warrants have been issued for them by the judiciary officials and red alerts have also been issued for them via the Interpol,” Tehran’s Prosecutor-General Ali Alqasi Meh said, as quoted by Fars.
Mr. Trump and the 35 others, Iranian officials said, stand accused of “murder and terrorist action.”
Following Iran’s issuance of the arrest warrant, the US has called on a renewal of the UN arms embargo against Iran:
The top US envoy to Iran said the expiring UN arms embargo against the Islamic Republic should be renewed to prevent it from “becoming the arms dealer of choice for rogue regimes and terrorist organizations” – hours before Tehran issued an arrest warrant for President Trump over the killing of a top general.
“If we let it expire, you can be certain that what Iran has been doing in the dark, it will do in broad daylight and then some,” Brian Hook told The Associated Press on Sunday.
“If we play by Iran’s rules, Iran wins. It is a mafia tactic where people are intimidated into accepting a certain kind of behavior for fear of something far worse,” Hook said about the mullahs’ threats to retaliate if the embargo, which is set to expire in October, is extended.
Soleimani was killed by a United States drone strike near Baghdad, Iraq on January 3, 2020. The Trump administration claimed they carried out the strike due to an “imminent attack”, but then later said it was to deter Iran from supporting attacks on US interests.
Soleimani was the leader of Iran’s Quds Force, which is a paramilitary wing of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard which was likely responsible for hundreds of deaths of US soldiers in Iraq. The Trump administration labeled Soleimani as a terrorist and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization.
