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NEW YORK — A Pakistani man accused of plotting with the Iranian government to murder public officials, including President Donald Trump, was convicted Friday.

Asif Merchant was found guilty of attempted terrorism transcending national boundaries and murder for hire, after a jury in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn deliberated for less than two hours.

The plan orchestrated by Merchant, according to evidence and testimony presented at a more than weeklong trial, came at the direction of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. Merchant, 47, faces life in prison.

Iran enlisted Merchant to “sow mayhem and murder,” Joseph Nocella Jr., the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said.

Merchant, listening through an Urdu interpreter, did not react as Judge Eric R. Komitee read the guilty counts Friday.

Christopher Neff, a lawyer for Merchant, said that though his legal team was disappointed by the conviction, there were still “complex and significant legal issues yet to be decided.”

“We remain confident that we will ultimately achieve a favorable result for Mr. Merchant,” Neff said.

The trial unfolded as the war in Iran began. Last Saturday, the United States and Israel struck Iran, killing top leaders, including those the United States says have planned assassination plots like the one Merchant was behind.

The case against Merchant, who was raised in Pakistan but traveled frequently to Iran, provided a rare glimpse in an American courtroom into some of the Iranian government’s efforts. Prosecutors depicted Merchant as enraged by the death of Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the spymaster who was killed by a U.S. drone on Jan. 3, 2020.

The evidence that Merchant plotted with the Iranian government was overwhelming, according to prosecutors, though he never came close to pulling off his scheme. It involved hiring small-time criminals to steal key documents, stage protests at political rallies, launder money and murder American politicians.

Making the unusual decision to testify in his own defense, he admitted Wednesday that he had been recruited by a member of the Revolutionary Guard. He described himself as a successful business owner, who demonstrated to his Iranian contacts that he was serious about an assassination plot because he feared for his life.

“I was not wanting to do this so willingly,” Merchant said.

This article originally appeared in .

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