Mill Valley man accused in Capitol riot granted asylum in Belarus
By Isabella Kwai and Valeriya Safronova
A Mill Valley man wanted by the FBI on charges including assaulting police officers at the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, has been granted asylum in Belarus, state media for the repressive Eastern European country announced.
Evan Neumann, whom prosecutors in Washington have accused of more than a dozen crimes, including striking police officers and using a metal barricade as a battering ram, left the United States soon after the riot last year.
After crossing into Belarus near the southwestern city of Pinsk in August, Neumann formally applied for asylum, according to state media. Belarusian authorities confirmed Tuesday that the request had been granted, airing footage on Belta, the state news agency, that appeared to show Neumann, 49, formally signing an immigration document.
“Now you are completely under the protection of the Republic of Belarus,” said an official identified by Belta as Yuriy Brazinskiy, an immigration official in Brest, the city where Neumann is living. The status was valid for “an indefinite period of time,” Brazinskiy said.
Neumann said he was grateful but called the experience “bittersweet, like eating cranberries.”
But, he added, “I feel safe in Belarus, especially compared to my compatriots in America.”
The FBI said in an email that Neumann was still wanted but declined to comment further.
The small Eastern European nation has been headed for almost three decades by Alexander Lukashenko, who has wielded his power to violently crack down on thousands of people protesting an election in 2020 that many Western nations called rigged. His main political opponent was forced to flee the country, and human rights groups have criticized the government for its impunity in persecuting journalists and opponents.
Last year, Lukashenko ordered the interception of a Ryanair flight over Belarusian airspace carrying a prominent dissident journalist, an act that some European countries denounced as a “state hijacking.”
Neumann, who owns a bag-making company and had resided in Mill Valley, said in previous interviews with Belarusian state media that friends had warned him that he was on the FBI’s most wanted list.
Neumann is wanted by the FBI on six charges including assaulting, resisting or impeding officers; obstructing law enforcement during civil disorder; and violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds.
U.S. court documents state on Jan. 6, Neumann stood at the front of a police barricade wearing a red “Make America Great Again” hat while supporters of Trump tried to force their way past officers. Prosecutors said Neumann taunted and screamed at the police before putting a gas mask over his face. They alleged he threatened one officer, saying police would be “overrun” by the crowd, and adding “I’m willing to die, are you?”
Police body camera footage showed Neumann and others shoving a metal barricade into a line of officers, and the court records alleged Neumann struck two officers with his fist and the barricade.
Neumann was identified by investigators through a tip. He was charged in a U.S. federal criminal complaint, meaning a judge agreed that investigators presented sufficient probable cause that Neumann had committed the crimes.
Neumann has denied striking officers, or committing any crimes, and has said in interviews with Belarusian state media that he traveled to Europe in February 2021 on a business trip, passing through several European countries before settling in Ukraine, a country he had previously visited, for four months.
But he felt that the Ukrainian authorities were tracking him, he said, and decided to go to Belarus, which he described as “against the West.”
He said that his new status in Belarus meant he was now able to travel to other parts of the country, including the capital, Minsk, but that he would settle in Brest.“I have started a life here,” he said.
Distributed by the News York Times News Service.