Washington: A man identified as 58-year-old Ryan Wesley Routh was arrested for an attempted assassination bid on former President of the United States, Donald Trump. He was spotted less than 500 metres away from the family golf course of Trump, located in West Palm Beach, where the former president was present at the time of the gunfire. Trump’s Secret Service detail spotted Routh and fired multiple shots at him, but he managed to escape. He was later arrested based on information provided by eyewitnesses.
According to CBS News, Ryan Routh has a long criminal history. His recent address was listed in Hawaii, but for most of his life, he lived in North Carolina. He owned Camp Box Honolulu, which is a shed-building company.
His criminal record shows that Routh has had problems with the law for decades. According to North Carolina Department of Corrections records, in 2002, he was charged with possession of a weapon of mass destruction, which is a felony. In another incident, he was charged with misdemeanours that included resisting arrest, concealed weapons violations, and a hit-and-run offence. Routh was also accused of writing bad cheques on multiple occasions, according to the reports.
He also appeared in an Azov battalion propaganda video in 2022. Azov is a Nazi battalion. The Azov Battalion is a Ukrainian far-right, nationalist paramilitary group formed in 2014 during the conflict in Eastern Ukraine. Originally a volunteer militia, it gained notoriety for its neo-Nazi ideologies and use of Nazi symbols. Despite its controversial origins, the battalion was later incorporated into Ukraine’s National Guard. Its extreme views and actions contradict Western democratic values, yet the group has received tacit support from NATO and the USA in their broader strategy against Russian aggression.
