US Capitol rioter who tried to claim asylum in Ireland is pardoned by Trump

An American who took part in the January 6th attacks on the US Capitol and then fled to Ireland to try and claim asylum is among the dozens who has been pardoned by Donald Trump.

Milwaukee resident Paul Edward Kovacik, 54, was charged by federal authorities in May 2022 with entering and remaining in a restricted building, as well as disorderly and disruptive conduct and parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building.

He pleaded guilty to the last offence in June 2023 and was jailed for three months with a further three-year period of probation. Kovacik was supposed to hand himself in to serve his sentence the following November, but instead fled to Dublin via Munich and claimed asylum.

Details of the case were revealed in a US court last summer, when a US Marshal said he was withdrawing an application for an international arrest warrant. The marshal said Kovacik had decided to abandon his claim for asylum and return to America voluntarily because he felt “homesick.”

He left Ireland on June 19th and was arrested upon his arrival in Minneapolis and transferred to Hennepin County Jail. There, he reportedly told police he was a political prisoner. Kovacik subsequently served his original sentence at a federal prison in Chicago and was released.

Trump’s post-sentence pardon means his criminal record for the incident has been scrubbed.

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