A suspected member of the IRGC has been handed 18-months preventive detention over his attempt to assassinate two Israelis in Peru. 

Investigations are still underway regarding the motive of the suspect, identified as Majid Aziz, who acquired Peruvian nationality through marriage. His two accomplices Ángelo Trucios and Walter Loja, both Peruvian nationals, have received the same sentence.

“It has been established with a high degree of plausibility” that the three suspects had conspired to kill Israelis, ruled the Peruvian judge in charge of the case.

According to the prosecutors, Azizi contacted the Peruvians to plan to kill two Israeli citizens living in the city of Cusco, once the capital of the Inca Empire. One of the Israeli targets works as a tour guide and the other owns a café.

Azizi was apprehended in March after he withdrew money from the Interbank bank, located in the Plaza de Armas in the center of the capital Lima. According to reports at the time, he was arrested over plotting to carry out a terrorist attack at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum (APEC).

The conspiracy in Peru is one of several Iran-backed attempted attacks over the last year on Jewish or Israeli targets, either carried out or foiled, in countries including Greece, Azerbaijan and Cyprus.

Over the past two years, many Iranian political activists and opposition figures have urged Western countries to designate the IRGC as a terrorist organization over its role in suppressing dissent in Iran and orchestrating attacks abroad.