Bay Area Jan. 6 Riot Suspect Seeks Asylum In Belarus: AP

MILL VALLEY, CA — A Mill Valley man sought in connection with the Jan. 6 riot on the U.S. Capitol is seeking asylum in Belarus according to the nation’s state-run television station, The Associated Press reports.

ABC 7 earlier this year reported that Evan Neumann sold his Mill Valley home in April for $1.3 million and may have left the country.

Jason Dubaniewicz, who purchased the home from Neumann, told the television station that "there was pressure to close," noting the realtor told him at the time that Neumann was in Ukraine.

Neumann is seen in video obtained by ABC 7 attacking police amid the riot.

Neumann acknowledged in the Belarus television interview that he attended the Jan. 6 riot on the Capitol in support of then-President Donald Trump’s baseless claims of election fraud, but the 48-year-old said he did not break any laws.

“I don’t think I have committed some kind of a crime,” Neumann told Belarus 1, according to The AP report.

“One of the charges was very offensive; it alleges that I hit a police officer. It doesn’t have any grounds to it.”

Neumann stood in front of a police barricade wearing a “Make America Great Again” as Trump supporters tried to force their way past officers, taunting and screaming at police before putting a gas mask over his face, The Associated Press reports, citing U.S. court documents.

At one point, Neumann told an officer that police would be “overrun” by the crowd, according to the report.

“I’m willing to die, are you?” he told the officer, prosecutors said, according to the report.

Neumann faces six counts including assaulting, resisting or impeding officers, obstructing law enforcement during civil disorder, and violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds.

He was identified by authorities by a family friend who called an FBI tip line, the report said.

Neumann is among more than 650 people who have been charged in connection with the insurrection.

He told Belarus 1 that he initially fled to Italy after his photo surfaced on the FBI’s most wanted list and has since spent time in several European countries.

Neumann subsequently went to Ukraine, and then fled that country by illegally crossing into neighboring Belarus, citing suspicions that he was under surveillance in Ukraine, the report said.

“It is awful,” he told Belarus 1. “It is political persecution.”

Read more in The Associated Press