Azhenedt Sanabria brings flowers to the Capitol to honor the agent killed in the assault, on January 8, 2021.JOE RAEDLE / AFP
The United States Department of Justice has charged two men on Monday for the attack on the Capitol police agent, Brian D. Sicknick, who was injured in the revolt in the federal building on January 6 and died 24 hours later. .
Julian Elie Khater, 32, and George Pierre Tanios, 39, are scheduled to appear in federal court following their arrest on Sunday.
According to court documents cited by local media, the two arrested attacked the agent with an unknown chemical spray, but forensics have not yet concluded Sicknick's cause of death.
Pennsylvania resident Khater and West Virginia business owner Tanios face nine charges, including assaulting three Capitol police officers with a deadly weapon: Sicknick, another Capitol agent and a Washington police officer.
They are also charged with civil unrest and obstruction of congressional proceedings.
They risk up to 20 years in prison.
The FBI found the subjects thanks to information provided by civilians about their whereabouts.
Although the two men now lived in different states, they had grown up together in New Jersey.
The arrests came weeks after investigators identified one of the defendants in a video of the assault on the Capitol, in which he was seen speaking to and attacking multiple officers with the spray, including Sicknick, according to court documents cited by
The Washington Post.
Sicknick was one of 139 police officers attacked by Trump supporters who broke through security barriers with baseball bats, crutches, flagpoles, among other devices.
At least 800 entered the Capitol after the violent men opened the way, according to the police report.
The results of Sicknick's autopsy have yet to be made public and it is up in the air if anyone will be held criminally responsible for the officer's death.
The deceased agent was a veteran of the Iraq war, and is the fourth member of the Capitol security force to die in the line of duty since the Congressional police force was founded two centuries ago.
The first reports said that Sicknick, 42, was injured "while physically confronting the protesters" and suffered a "collapse" when he returned to the office.
He was convalescing for more than 24 hours in the hospital.