From Ukraine to Florida: Who is Ryan Routh, the suspect in Trump assassination attempt?

Nevin Al Sukari - Sana'a - Ryan W. Routh poses in a jail booking photograph in Greensboro, North Carolina, U.S. February 10, 2010. — Guilford County Sheriff’s Office handout pic via Reuters

WASHINGTON, Sept 17 — “When is it acceptable to kill another human-being?” wonders Ryan Routh, the man arrested on suspicion of attempting to assassinate Donald Trump, in the Amazon blurb for his self-published book on Ukraine’s Unwinnable War.

A 58-year-old convicted felon who tried to recruit foreign fighters to Ukraine and called Russian President Vladimir Putin a “terrorist,” Routh appears to have once supported Trump, reportedly voting for him in 2016.

But by 2020 he was writing on social media that he had “misjudged” Trump and “made a terrible mistake” when it came to the Republican presidential candidate, US media reported.

Now Routh, already facing prison for gun crimes, is expected to face further charges after his arrest on Sunday on suspicion of trying to kill Trump at his West Palm Beach golf course.

It was the second time in two months that someone has allegedly tried to assassinate Trump — and it was the latest in a long line of potentially violent choices apparently made by Routh.

Originally from Greensboro, North Carolina, Routh appears to have been inhabited by an urgent desire to act.

By chance he was interviewed by AFP during a rally in Kyiv in April of 2022, just two months after Putin sent his army into the Eastern European country.

“Putin is a terrorist, and he needs to be ended, so we need everybody from around the globe to stop what they are doing and come here now and support the Ukrainians to end this war,” he told AFP, one cheek painted in the blue and yellow of Ukraine’s flag, the other in red.

Posts on his X account — which has since been suspended — showed he was willing to “fight and die” in Ukraine, The New York Times reported, and his Amazon book blurb speaks of having thousands of Afghan and Syrian fighters ready to take up arms — if only Washington and Kyiv would allow them to do so.

A representative from Ukraine’s foreign legion described his ideas to CNN as “delusional” and “not realistic,” saying that although he contacted them several times, he was never part of the unit for overseas volunteers.

Activist or agitator?

Sunday’s attempted assassination was not Ryan Wesley Routh’s first run-in with US authorities.

The criminal complaint against him says that in 2002 he was convicted in Greensboro, North Carolina of “possession of a weapon of mass destruction.” CNN reported that he was arrested after being pulled over by police and allegedly putting his hand on a firearm, then barricading himself inside a business.

In 2010, the complaint shows, he was also convicted of possessing stolen goods.

CNN said he has also been involved in court cases going back to the 1990s, ordered to pay tens of thousands of dollars in civil suits and accused of failing to pay his taxes on time.

A photo released by the local sheriff’s department on Sunday shows Routh in the moments after his arrest, sunglasses sliding down his face and rumpled T-shirt pulled up to his chest, with his blond hair a mess and his hands cuffed behind his back.

The American flag is often prominent in photos he shared on social media — wearing a shirt with a flag pattern, for instance, or having it sewn onto other items of clothing.

His urge to take action also appears evident in his current business, which — according to a LinkedIn profile in his name — is a small outfit in Hawaii that builds “simple economical structures to help address the highest homelessness rate in the United States.”

Local media reported in 2019 that he donated one of his cabins to the homeless.

His 291-page self-published book appears to have taken that desire to act and turned it into a rallying cry for people to take up arms in Ukraine.

“I think that the vast majority of advanced civilised society would land on the side that killing a human is generally unacceptable,” he writes, before adding: “If we all are opposed to the unjust random killings of civilians how can we go about our daily lives and not act.”

His eldest son, Oran, told CNN he was a “loving and caring father, and honest hardworking man.”

The accusations against Routh in Florida do not “sound like the man I know,” he said. — AFP