An American man who fled prison after being sentenced for his role in the US Capitol riot is now seeking political asylum in Canada as he waits and hopes for pardon when Donald Trump returns to the White House. Used to be.
Antony Vo, 32, was sentenced to nine months behind bars and ordered to report to a federal prison on June 14, 2024, but instead fled to Canada.
More than 1,500 people have been charged in connection with the attack on Congress on January 6, 2021, which sought to disrupt the certification of President Joe Biden’s election victory.
Vo, of Indiana, was convicted in a jury trial in Washington on four counts of entering a restricted building and disorderly conduct related to his actions.
“I knew Canada had a history of welcoming refugees, from refugees during the Vietnam War to people hiding Edward Snowden in Hong Kong,” he told AFP. “So I packed my snowboarding gear and drove across the border.”
In refugee claim documents, Vo said the riot was “a peaceful protest” that was “broken up as part of a domestic regime-change operation to politically assassinate Trump and his supporters.”
He said he was “persecuted, abused” and “unfairly prosecuted” over his political beliefs, and would be imprisoned “under inhumane conditions” if sent back to the United States.
The attack on the Capitol followed a fiery speech by then-President Trump to thousands of his supporters near the White House, in which he repeated his false claims that he had won the 2020 vote.
More than 140 police officers were injured during hours of clashes with rioters who used flags, 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 her and her mother, Annie — who fled Vietnam in 1991 and was granted asylum in the United States — smiling inside the Capitol. She was arrested in March and is awaiting trial.
Vo said he hoped to remain in Canada “until it becomes 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 protesters.”
Trump has called the rioters patriots and political prisoners and said in a CNN town hall that he is “willing to pardon many of them.”
Several Capitol riot defendants have taken advantage of Trump’s election victory over Vice President Kamala Harris to request that their trials or convictions be put on hold.
Trump, who took office again in January, was himself accused of conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
But the case never went to trial and is now being dropped under the Justice Department’s policy of not prosecuting a sitting president.
Vo said he had also tried to seek asylum in Argentina, Mexico, El Salvador, Vietnam, Belarus and Russia.
“I seriously attempted to take paramotoring lessons and then paramotored from Key West to Cuba and sought refuge there,” he said in his claim.
Vo said that in Canada, “people have taken really good care of me.”