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A man has been jailed for trying to assassinate Donald Trump as he played golf two months before the 2024 US election.
Secret Service agents spotted Ryan Routh in bushes a few hundred metres from Mr Trump at his golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida, on 15 September.
Routh, 59, fled and left behind an assault-style rifle but was swiftly arrested.
The incident came two months after Mr Trump survived another assassination attempt in Pennsylvania in which the gunman was shot dead.
He was convicted in September of five charges after declining a lawyer and mounting his own defence.
Routh left a rifle at the scene when he fled. Pic: Reuters
Routh was quickly arrested. Pic: Martin County Sheriff’s Office
Routh tried to stab himself in the neck with a pen after the verdict but was quickly surrounded and did not hurt himself.
He was convicted of trying to assassinate a major presidential candidate, using a firearm in furtherance of a crime, assaulting a federal officer, possessing a firearm as a felon, and using a gun with a defaced serial number.
A Secret Service agent told the jury he had spotted Routh in the bushes before Mr Trump was in sight. He aimed at the agent but they opened fire and Routh dropped his weapon and ran.
The trial heard Routh waited in thick bushes for nearly 10 hours and also left behind body armour-like metal plates and a video camera pointed at the course.
Prosecutors said he had spent weeks plotting how to kill Mr Trump and arrived in Florida about a month before as he tracked Trump’s movements and schedule.
They said the president would have been shot dead were if not for the Secret Service agent’s intervention.
Judge Aileen Cannon rejected a defence plea for a 27-year-sentence and handed down the life sentence. She told Routh: “It’s clear to me that you engaged in a premeditated, calculated plot to take a human life.”
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