this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2025
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Afatwa, or religious decree, issued by senior Iranian clerics calling for the assassination of U.S. President Donald Trump has attracted online funding worth tens of millions of dollars, reports say.

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[–] AbouBenAdhem@lemmy.world 40 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Has there ever been an assassination that was motivated by a public bounty? And did the assassin successfully collect?

[–] tyr0sine@mander.xyz 24 points 1 day ago (3 children)
[–] AbouBenAdhem@lemmy.world 20 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

I’m not asking whether there have been any previous similar bounties—I’m asking whether any of them were the primary incentive for a successful assassination.

The attempt against Rushdie failed, and the attacker claims to have had religious rather than financial motivations (and doesn’t seem to have planned to escape to collect payment in any case).

[–] JcbAzPx@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

If they got away with it, we won't have heard about it.

[–] AbouBenAdhem@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

That’s why I’m specifically wondering about the public aspect of the bounty—it presupposes that the assassin will be publicly known and able to conduct financial transactions afterward, and that the sponsor will be able to openly make good on their promise.

[–] explodicle@sh.itjust.works 1 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

One way they could do it:

  • assassin writes down their plan, including time, place, method, and payment address
  • assassin hashes plan, then time-stamps and publishes the hash
  • assassination takes place
  • assassin publishes plantext plan and link to hash, proving beforehand knowledge
  • sponsor pays assassin without even having to know who it is
[–] AbouBenAdhem@lemmy.world 2 points 18 hours ago (2 children)

The sponsor would have to be able to publicly demonstrate that the assassin was paid, though—otherwise they could claim to have paid the bounty while keeping the money, and the assassin couldn‘t protest without exposing their identity.

[–] logi@lemmy.world 2 points 17 hours ago

But they could publish another hash.

[–] explodicle@sh.itjust.works 1 points 10 hours ago

Since the payment address has been published, anyone can verify whether or not it's received any payments.

[–] glitchdx@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

i kinda wanna read his book now