US aims to bring attempted assassination charge against Trump suspect

The US Justice Department plans to charge the man accused of hiding with a gun at former US president Donald Trump’s Florida golf course with attempting to assassinate a major political candidate, carrying a life sentence if convicted, a prosecutor said on Monday.

Ryan Routh, 58, was ordered by US Magistrate Judge Ryon McCabe to remain in prison without bond pending trial on the two gun-related charges brought against him after his September 15 arrest.

McCabe said prosecutors had documented Routh’s effort to “stalk” Trump during a roughly month-long period in south Florida “in an apparent attempt to assassinate him”.

Prosecutor Mark Dispoto said the Justice Department will ask a grand jury to bring the more serious attempted assassination charge against Routh, who was handcuffed and shackled at the waist during a hearing before McCabe in which prosecutors detailed some of the evidence collected against him.

Routh wrote a letter, prosecutors said, months earlier referencing an “assassination attempt” on the Republican presidential candidate and a US$150,000 bounty on his life.