Capitol riot suspect accused of attacking police officer is seeking asylum in Belarus

Evan Neumann reportedly fled to Europe this spring, facing charges from the FBI

A California man wanted by the FBI for his alleged participation in the 6 January US Capitol riot has fled to Belarus, where he is seeking asylum in the authoritarian nation, according to state media.

In March, Federal officials charged Evan Neumann of Mill Valley, a wealthy enclave north of San Francisco, with six crimes, including the felonies of assaulting an officer and joining a civil disorder, based on body camera footage of the man captured during the riot at the Capitol.

Since then, Mr Neumann told Belarusian state media over the weekend in an interview set to air later this week, he has fled for Europe, describing an espionage novel-like odyssey, traveling through Germany and Poland, evading security officials in Ukraine, and crossing through the swamps near Chernobyl to Belarus, which lacks an extradition treaty to the US.

The Independent reached out to Mr Neumann’s business, a handbag manufacturer, for comment, but did not receive a response. During the interview with Belarus 1, the Mill Valley man called the charges against him “unfounded” and a sign of “political persecution.”

Mr Neumann reportedly sold his $1.3m Mill Valley house in April, and the new owners told ABC 7 that the real estate agent had heard the seller had since left for Ukraine. Mr Neumann’s brother, who works in construction in the nearby city of Petaluma, told the network he did not know his brother’s alleged involvement in the riot or current whereabouts.

According to charging documents, FBI agents questioned Mr Neumann in February at the San Francisco airport, but did not take him into custody.

Court documents, social media, and local news coverage paint an image of Mr Neumann as an eccentric, politically-minded man with ties to Eastern Europe, who was willing to use violence on 6 January.

During the riot, Mr Neumann, initially clad in a gas mask and MAGA hat, reportedly screamed at officers and bashed them with a metal barricade, yelling QAnon-esque conspiracies about how police were “defending the people who are going to kill your f****** children . . . they are gonna kill your f****** children, they are gonna rape them, they are gonna imprison them, and you’re defending the people that are going to do this to your children,” according to his charging documents.

The documents also note that he appears to be wearing a scarf to commemorate the 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine, which Mr Neumann’s LinkedIn page says he participated in, Buzzfeed News reported.

The page also lists Mr Neumann working in computer programming, hospitality, “robotic avalanche control,” fashion, and co-founding an “international dating service that specialized in matching California men with Ukrainian women using the internet for real-time and low-cost correspondence.”

The state TV segment on Mr Neumann, titled “Goodbye, America”, meanwhile, portrays him as a “simple American whose shops were burned by Black Lives Matter activists.”

Belarus, whose president Alexander Lukashenko is a close ally of Vladimir Putin, has lashed out at the US for a perceived “double standard,” following widespread international condemnation of how authorities attack, jailed, and reportedly tortured numerous demonstrators protesting the country’s 2020 presidential election.