Ryan Routh found guilty of trying to assassinate Donald Trump

A 59-year-old man has been found guilty of attempting to assassinate Donald Trump on a golf course.

Ryan Routh tried to stab himself in the neck with a pen shortly after he was convicted on all five charges against him.

Marshals quickly surrounded Routh and dragged him out of the courtroom in Fort Pierce, Florida.

His daughter Sara Routh screamed: “Dad I love you don’t do anything. I’ll get you out. He didn’t hurt anybody.”

She continued screaming in the courtroom as her father was removed and she said the case against him was rigged.

Ms Routh then went outside the court building and waited by the guard gate for her father to be driven out and transported to prison.

A jury decided Routh intended to kill Mr Trump when he pointed a rifle through a fence as the then US presidential candidate was playing golf in West Palm Beach, Florida, in September last year.

Routh fled without firing a shot after a Secret Service agent patrolling the course ahead of Mr Trump saw Routh and the rifle and opened fire, according to witness testimony in the case.

At the start of the trial, prosecutor John Shipley said “this plot was carefully crafted and deadly serious”, adding that without the agent intervening, “Donald Trump would not be alive”.

Routh had been charged with attempting to assassinate a major presidential candidate, possessing a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence, assaulting a federal officer, possessing a firearm and ammunition as a convicted felon and possessing a firearm with an obliterated serial number.

The incident occurred weeks after a bullet grazed the president’s ear in another assassination attempt at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

Routh, who faces the prospect of life in prison, pleaded not guilty to all the charges against him and chose to defend himself in court.

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