The ex-wife of the mastermind behind the chilling terror plot to assassinate Donald Trump is an accomplished American lawyer who converted to Islam for him, DailyMail.com can reveal.
Gabriele Burner, 49, was married to Farhad Shakeri, 51, who allegedly admitted to being the ringleader of the now-foiled scheme involving three hitmen hired by the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) to target Trump.
The couple had five children and were living in New York when Shakeri was convicted of robbery and kidnapping in 1994 and was handed a 21-year prison sentence.
Shakeri, who grew up in Virginia, was later deported from the US to his native Afghanistan after being offered a plea deal by authorities.
Burner, a white woman from New York, stood by her husband for several years, even moving to Afghanistan and then Dubai following his deportation.
Gabriele Burner, 49, a lawyer from New York, converted to Islam before marrying now ex-husband Farhad Shakeri, 51, the alleged ringleader of the now-foiled scheme to assassinate Donald Trump
Shakeri is alleged to have helped orchestrate a plot to assassinate Trump weeks before the presidential election
Photos exclusively obtained by DailyMail.com show the couple posing together after his release from US custody.
Burner spent nine years working in the Special Litigation Unit of New York City’s Law Department, until her husband’s deportation.
The mother-of-five then became a legal advisory in the Afghan capital Kabul for three years.
Shakeri and his family then moved to Dubai in 2011, where Burner worked again as a legal consultant, before they ultimately split in 2015 after the birth of their youngest son.
She then moved with her children back to New York, setting up her own legal firm in Port Jefferson in Long Island.
In 2022 the lawyer rebranded her firm from Law Office of Gabriele Shakeri to Gabriele Burner, after eight years of practicing under her married name.
When approached by DailyMail.com Burner declined to comment.
But sources claim that his family was appalled by the way he treated her after she converted to Islam to be with him.
‘Gaby decided to bring her life back to America because of his behavior,’ they said. ‘She really gave her entire life to him.
‘She left him when they were in Dubai, and moved back to New York, because of his behavior. He just seemed to get worse.
The source said Shakeri’s younger brother lost all respect for him after he saw how he treated her.
‘He was very disappointed to see the girl, a white woman who had turned Muslim and spoke the language, and he just couldn’t look up to him anymore.’
The news comes after DailyMail.com revealed that Shakeri was brought up in Manassas, Virginia, from the age of nine along with his six siblings after their parents moved them from Afghanistan for a better life.
Burner, who split with Shakeri in 2015, moved with her children back to New York, setting up her own legal firm in Port Jefferson in Long Island
Gabriele changed the name of her Long Island, New York, law business from her married name Shakeri to her maiden name Burner
Shakeri was a ‘troubled’ boy, with his family being left terrified of any repercussions while still living on US soil and was convicted in 1994 for robbing a gun store in New York aged just 20.
Some of the stolen weapons at Shakeri’s home, with investigators accusing the gang of holding the clerk of the store up at gun point before stealing the cache of weapons.
They reportedly ‘argued’ over whether or not to kill their victim, but ultimately dumped him 60 miles away from the store – threatening to harm his family if he identified them.
Shakeri was handed a 21-year-prison sentence, but was deported after serving 14.
He was then arrested in 2019 in Colombo, Sri Lanka, in connection with the seizure of 92 kilograms of heroin.
Shakeri confessed to the FBI in five separate phone calls over a two-month period that he helped orchestrate a plot to assassinate Trump weeks before last week’s Presidential election.
He claimed the original plan was to carry out killings against Iranian opponents in the US, before receiving new orders on October 7 – the anniversary of the Hamas attacks in Israel – to solely target Trump.
Despite his admissions, Shakeri is still on the loose in Tehran, as Iran does not have an extradition agreement with the US and tensions remain at an all-time high between the two nations.
American authorities therefore have no legal means to order Shakeri to return to the United States or give himself up to face punishment.
The FBI have had five high-stakes discussions with Shakeri over the phone in the span of two months. Bureau officials have not revealed why Shakeri volunteered so much explosive information to them.
Pictures released by the Justice Department after the thwarted attempt on Trump’s life
Carlisle ‘Pop’ Rivera, 49, one of the alleged would-be assassins hired by Iran is a self-employed pipe fitter from Staten Island and convicted murderer. He was arrested last Thursday and charged with conspiracy to murder the president-elect and an Iranian activist
He told authorities he met a senior member of the Revolutionary Guard through his work in Tehran in the ‘oil and fuel businesses.’
The man was referred to by others around him as Majid Soleimani, but Shakeri said he did not know whether he is connected to Iranian military officer Qassem Soleimani, who was assassinated under Trump’s watch in 2020.
When Majid learned that Shakeri used to live in New York, he offered him a large sum of money to investigate – and ultimately kill – Iranian-American human rights activist and journalist Masih Alinejad.
In his initial calls with the FBI, Shakeri denied that he agreed to have Alinejad killed, and said he merely offered his services to have her investigated.
By his last correspondence with authorities on November 7, he accepted that he had enlisted a former prison buddy, Carlisle ‘Pop’ Rivera, to kill her. The two men met while he was serving time for robbery and Rivera was in for second degree murder.
According to the criminal complaint seen by DailyMail.com, Rivera was waiting on a $100,000 payment from the IRGC to carry out the assassination.
But Shakeri said by mid-late September, the IRGC official had told him to ‘put aside his other efforts and focus on surveilling, and ultimately killing, Donald Trump.
Shakeri allegedly paid Rivera and a third hitman Jonathan Loadholt $1,000 to surveil Alinejad at a speaking engagement at Fairfield University in Connecticut. This screenshot showed the details for the event, a photo of her, and a money order for $500 to be paid to Rivera
Pictures released by the DOJ show the cache of weapons the suspected hitmen had at their disposal
Iranian-American human rights activist and journalist Masih Alinejad was another target thaat Shakeri was hired to kill
Shakeri warned Majid that such a feat would cost ‘a huge amount of money’, and said he was reassured that ‘money is not an issue.’
Around October 7, Shakeri was given a seven-day deadline to devise a thorough plan to carry out the assassination attempt.
He was told if he could not come up with a plan in this timeframe, the attempt would be put on the back burner until after the election, because officials in Iran assumed Trump would lose and then have less protection.
In September, the Trump campaign revealed it had been briefed on the threat from Tehran.
‘Big threats on my life by Iran,’ Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. ‘The entire US military is watching and waiting.
‘Moves were already made by Iran that didn’t work out, but they will try again.’
The disturbing documents unsealed by the Department of Justice revealed the arsenal of weapons the would-be assassins had at their disposal and the texts messages they sent each other to concoct their plan.
Qassem Soleimani, the leader of the brutal Iranian Quds Forces was assassinated in a US drone strike in Baghdad ordered under Trump’s watch
Shakeri explained in his FBI interviews that he had been tasked with surveilling and killing Trump to avenge the drone strike that killed Soleimani, the leader of Iran’s elite Quds Force, in Baghdad in January 2020.
Shakeri – along with Rivera, 49, and another New Yorker, Jonathan Loadholt, 36 – are also accused of targeting Alinejad and were offered $500,000 to kill two Jewish businessmen living in the U.S.
Rivera and Loadholt are both in US custody and made a court appearance in New York last week.
Trump has already survived two attempts on his life, including avoiding death by a fraction of an inch when he was shot in the ear at an election rally in Pennsylvania in July.
Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement that there are ‘few actors’ in the world that ‘pose as grave a threat to the national security of the United States as does Iran.’
‘The Justice Department has charged an asset of the Iranian regime who was tasked by the regime to direct a network of criminal associates to further Iran’s assassination plots against its targets, including President-elect Donald Trump.’
‘We have also charged and arrested two individuals who we allege were recruited as part of that network to silence and kill, on U.S. soil, an American journalist who has been a prominent critic of the regime.
‘We will not stand for the Iranian regime’s attempts to endanger the American people and America’s national security.’
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Read more at DailyMail.co.uk