The suspect in the shooting of Donald Trump planned to recruit Afghan soldiers to fight in Ukraine

Washington:

A 58-year-old man arrested in connection with an alleged assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump said in a 2023 interview that he plans to use Pakistan to recruit potential Afghan soldiers to fight Russia in Ukraine.

Ryan Wesley Routh, who authorities suspect attempted to attack the Republican presidential candidate during a round of golf, made the remarks to the New York Times.

In a 2023 newspaper interview, Routh also said he was looking for recruits for Ukraine among Afghan soldiers who had fled the Taliban. He said he planned to bring them to Ukraine, in some cases illegally, from Pakistan and Iran. He said dozens had expressed interest.

“We can probably buy some passports through Pakistan because it is such a corrupt country,” he was quoted as saying by the New York Times.

In his public statements, he displayed pro-Ukrainian views, which is why he was interviewed by several news organizations in 2023, including the New York Times and Semafor.

Routh is an independent affordable housing developer in Hawaii who has at times criticized the former president.

This was the second assassination attempt on Trump within two months. In July, a life-threatening attack on the 78-year-old Trump during his campaign rally in Pennsylvania shocked the entire nation. Trump injured his right ear after the young gunman fired several shots at him during the campaign rally.

During Sunday's attack, Trump was on the golf course just a few hundred yards away when Secret Service agents spotted Routh hiding 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 arrested during a traffic stop. A rifle with a telescopic sight, a camera and two backpacks were found in the bushes, the report said.

Routh, who authorities suspect attempted to attack the former president during a round of golf, posted comments on an associated X-account referencing the July assassination attempt on Trump, CNN reported.

In separate posts, Routh tagged President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris and urged them to visit those injured at the rally.

“You and Biden should visit the injured at the Trump rally in the hospital and attend the funeral of the murdered firefighter. Trump will never do anything for them,” he wrote in a post addressed to Harris.

Routh, who has a long criminal record in North Carolina, frequently posted political topics and has donated exclusively to Democratic candidates and causes since 2019, the New York Post reported.

He also criticized Trump in an April 22 post on X, in which he declared, “DEMOCRACY is on the ballot and we cannot lose.” In an April 22 post on X, when Biden was still running for re-election, he advised Biden, 81, to run a campaign about keeping “America democratic and free,” claiming Trump wants to “make Americans slaves to their masters.” Meanwhile, Oran Routh, the son of the man accused of trying to assassinate Trump, said his father traveled to Ukraine and volunteered to provide what the son described as “humanitarian” aid to troops defending the country from Russian forces invading in 2022, The Guardian reported.

Oran said his father was passionate about the Ukrainian cause

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)