Man pleads guilty in plot to kill Saudi ambassador

2:56 PM, Oct 17, 2012   |    comments
In this handout photo provided by the Nueces County Sheriff's Department, Manssor Arbab Arbabsiar is seen in this 2001 mug shot. (Photo courtesy of Nueces County Sheriff's Office via Getty Images)
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NEW YORK (AP) -- A Texas man could get up to 25 years in prison when he's sentenced in January for plotting to assassinate Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States.
    
Manssor Arbabsiar pleaded guilty today to a pair of conspiracy charges and a murder-for-hire count.
    
He had agreed to hire a man he thought was a drug dealer in Mexico last year, and pay him $1.5 million to carry out the attack with explosives at a Washington restaurant.
    
Arbabsiar is a U.S. citizen who holds an Iranian passport. The Obama administration has accused agents of the Iranian government of being involved.
    
Prosecutors have said that if the case had gone to trial, they would have introduced secretly-recorded conversations between Arbabsiar and a confidential source.

(Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

10/17/2012 2:11:30 PM (GMT -4:00)

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