MINSK -- A U.S. citizen who took part in the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol building in Washington, D.C., has been granted refugee status in Belarus.
In an interview with state-controlled media, Evan Neumann said he had received refugee status papers in the western city of Brest on March 22.
Neumann, 49, was detained by Belarusian border guards last August for illegally crossing into the country from Ukraine.
In December, a court in Washington indicted Neumann on 14 criminal counts, including assaulting police officers and other crimes related to the attack on the U.S. Capitol.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office said at the time that the FBI was investigating the case and that a warrant had been issued for his arrest.
Members of the U.S. National Guard assemble on the grounds of the U.S. Capitol on January 12, 2021.
Neumann told Belarusian media earlier that he stayed in Switzerland and Italy before heading to Ukraine for four months. He then decided to illegally cross into Belarus and seek political asylum after Ukraine's security services started showing an interest in him.
The United States has no extradition treaty with Belarus.
The attack on the Capitol attempted to halt a joint session of U.S. Congress that was in the process of certifying Joe Biden’s presidential election victory over incumbent Donald Trump in a November 2020 election. The siege followed a rally near the White House earlier that day at which Trump called on his supporters to march on the Capitol in a last-gasp attempt to overturn the election results.
The attempt failed as lawmakers reconvened after the riot to certify the results, ensuring Biden became the country's 46th president.
The indictment says that during the riot, Neumann shoved a metal barricade into a line of officers and struck the officers with the barricade and with his fist. In an interview with Belarus-1, Neumann rejected the charges, calling them "political persecution."
Since the riot, more than 700 people have been arrested for crimes related to the breach of the U.S. Capitol, including over 220 individuals charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement.