Washington: A 58-year-old man detained in connection with an apparent assassination attempt on former president Donald Trump has said in an interview in 2023 that he planned to recruit potential Afghan soldiers through Pakistan to fight in Ukraine against Russia. Ryan Wesley Routh, who authorities suspect was planning to attack the Republican presidential nominee as he played a round of golf, made these remarks to The New York Times.
During an interview with a newspaper in 2023, Routh also said he was seeking recruits for Ukraine from among Afghan soldiers who had fled the Taliban. He said he planned to move them, in some cases illegally, from Pakistan and Iran to Ukraine. He said dozens had expressed interest. "We can probably purchase some passports through Pakistan since it’s such a corrupt country," he was quoted as saying by the New York Times. He has shown pro-Ukraine views in his public statements because of which he was interviewed by several news organisations, including The New York Times and Semafor in 2023.
What happened with Trump on September 15?
Routh is a self-employed affordable housing builder in Hawaii who at times has criticised the former president. This was the second attempt on Trump's life in two months. In July, a life-threatening attack on 78-year-old Trump during his rally in Pennsylvania shocked the entire nation. He injured his right ear after the young shooter fired multiple shots at him at the campaign rally.
During Sunday's attack, Trump was on the course, a few hundred yards away, when Secret Service personnel spotted Routh concealed in the bushes and opened fire, law enforcement officials were quoted as saying by the New York Times. He fled the scene in a vehicle and was taken into custody during a traffic stop, and a rifle with a scope was recovered from the bushes, along with a camera and two backpacks, the report added.
Routh, who authorities suspect was planning to attack the former president as he played a round of golf, posted comments on an X account linked to him referencing the assassination attempt on Trump in July, CNN reported.
Accused advise for Biden and Harris after first assassination attempt
In separate posts, Routh tagged President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, encouraging them to visit those injured at the rally. “You and Biden should visit the injured people in the hospital from the Trump rally and attend the funeral of the murdered fireman. Trump will never do anything for them,” he wrote in a post directed at Harris. Routh, who has a lengthy criminal record from North Carolina, frequently posted about politics and exclusively donated to Democratic candidates and causes dating back to 2019, the New York Post reported.
He also bashed Trump in an April 22 post on X in which he declared, “DEMOCRACY is on the ballot and we cannot lose.” He advised Biden, 81, in an April 22 X post when he was still running for reelection, to run a campaign around keeping “America democratic and free.” He claimed Trump wants to “make Americans slaves against master.”
What the accused son said
Meanwhile, Oran Routh, the son of the man accused of trying to assassinate Trump, has said his father had travelled to Ukraine and volunteered to provide what the son described as “humanitarian” aid to troops defending the country from Russian forces that invaded in 2022, The Guardian reported.
Oran said that his father was passionate about the Ukraine cause. Oran, told CNN in a statement that "I don't have any comment beyond a character profile of him as a loving and caring father ... I don't know what's happened in Florida, and I hope things have just been blown out of proportion."
(With inputs from agencies)
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