Julian Khater of Pennsylvania and George Tanios of West Virginia are being held without bail by the federal government in a District of Columbia Department of Corrections (DOC) restrictive housing facility.
“Restrictive housing” is another way of saying “solitary confinement.” Khater and Tanios are restricted to their cells for all but one hour of each day, which is their only opportunity for physical exercise, talking with other inmates, or conferring with their attorneys.
According to Politico, the plight of the men is shared by “dozens” of Jan. 6 detainees who also are being held in restrictive housing.
Spokesmen for both the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and DOC didn’t respond to multiple requests from The Epoch Times to interview Khater and Tanios, or to answer questions about their cases.
Attorneys for Khater and Tanios declined to comment on the case. Their clients are charged with multiple felonies in connection with their participation in the Jan. 6 protests and breach of the U.S. Capitol.
Among the charges are “assault on a federal officer with a dangerous weapon, civil disorder, conspiracy to injure an officer, obstructing or impeding an official proceeding, physical violence while on restricted grounds and resulting in significant bodily injury, violent entry and disorderly conduct, an act of physical violence on Capitol grounds, and aiding and abetting.”
In its announcement of the arrests of the two men, the DOJ said the charges were based on evidence in which they “were observed in video footage working together to assault law enforcement officers with an unknown chemical substance by spraying officers directly in the face and eyes.”
“During the investigation, it is alleged that law enforcement discovered video that depicted Khater asking Tanios to ‘give me that bear [expletive].’ Tanios replied, ‘Hold on, hold on, not yet, not yet … it’s still early.’ Khater then retrieved a canister from Tanios’s backpack and walked through the crowd to within a few steps of the police perimeter,” the announcement reads.
