Sawt Falasteen - US Capitol riot fugitive seeks asylum in Canada

Antony Vo, 32, was sentenced to nine months behind bars and ordered to report to a federal prison on June 14, 2024, but instead he fled to Canada.

More than 1,500 people have been charged in connection with the January 6, 2021 assault on Congress, which sought to disrupt certification of President Joe Biden's election victory.

Vo, from Indiana, was convicted at a jury trial in Washington of four counts of entering a restricted building and disorderly conduct related to his actions.

"I knew Canada has a history of being welcoming to refugees, from Vietnam War draft dodgers to the people who hid Edward Snowden in Hong Kong," he told AFP.

"So I packed up my snowboarding gear and drove across the border."

In refugee claim documents, Vo said the riot was "a peaceful protest" that was "subverted as part of a domestic regime-change operation to politically assassinate Trump and his supporters."

He added that he was "persecuted, maltreated," and subjected to an "unfair trial" over his political beliefs, and if sent back to the United States would be jailed "under inhumane conditions."

The assault on the Capitol followed a fiery speech by then-president Trump to tens of thousands of his supporters near the White House, in which he repeated his false claims that he won the 2020 vote.

More than 140 police officers were injured in hours of clashes with rioters wielding flagpoles, baseball bats, hockey sticks and other makeshift weapons along with Tasers and canisters of bear spray.

Vo insisted that he saw no violence.

Images on social media showed Vo and his mother Annie -- who fled Vietnam in 1991 and was granted asylum in the United States -- smiling inside the Capitol that day. She was arrested in March and is awaiting trial.

Vo said he hopes to stay in Canada "until the situation is safe for me to return" to the United States. "When Donald Trump takes office, I hope he pardons me and the rest of the January 6 protestors."

Trump has called the rioters "patriots" and "political prisoners" and told a CNN town hall that he was "inclined to pardon many of them."

Several Capitol riot defendants have seized upon Trump's election victory over Vice President Kamala Harris to ask that their trials or sentencing be put on hold.

Trump himself, who takes office again in January, was charged with conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

But the case never made it to trial and is now being wound down under the Justice Department's policy of not prosecuting a sitting president.

Vo said that he had also tried to seek asylum in Argentina, Mexico, El Salvador, Vietnam, Belarus, and Russia.

"I seriously explored getting paramotoring lessons and then paramotoring from Key West to Cuba to seek asylum there too," he said in his claim.

Vo said that in Canada, "people have really taken good care of me."

M.AlAhmad--SF-PST