Saudi envoy murder plot suspect pleads not guilty

The Iranian-American accused of being the central figure in a plot involving senior Iranian officials to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington pleaded not guilty Monday in a New York court.

Manssor Arbabsiar, who lived for years in Texas where he worked as a used car salesman and is accused by US authorities of plotting to get Mexican gangsters to carry out the attack, entered his plea during a five-minute hearing in federal court.

Dressed in a dark brown and blue prison smock and looking tired, Arbabsiar spoke in accented English, responding "not guilty" when the court asked how he was to plead.

He said nothing more during the hearing, after which he was led, without handcuffs, back to his cell.

Arbabsiar, a naturalized US citizen aged 56, was formally indicted on October 20 along with co-defendant Gholam Shakuri, whom US authorities said is an Iran-based operative of the Quds force, an elite arm of Iran's Revolutionary Guards. Shakuri remains at large.

Tehran has strongly denied any involvement in what the US says was a plot by the Quds force to kill the Saudi envoy by hiring assassins from a Mexican drug cartel for ê1.5 million.

The explosive case has ratcheted up tensions between Iran and the United States, with US President Barack Obama demanding answers and "accountability" from Tehran if it was involved in the alleged plot.

According to the indictment, Arbabsiar and Shakuri conspired to "kill the ambassador to the United States of Saudi Arabia, while the ambassador was in the United States."

To set up the alleged hit, Arbabsiar arranged for the wiring of ê100,000 to the United States as a down payment, the indictment says.

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