ISIS-inspired terrorist Sayfullo Saipov guilty of eight NYC bike path murders in Biden’s first death penalty case

Sayfullo Saipov, who used a truck to kill eight people in a 2017 terrorist attack on a New York City bike path, was found guilty of murder, attempted murder, material support for a terrorist organization alien and destruction of a motor vehicle.

The 12-person jury at the Manhattan Federal Courthouse returned guilty verdicts against Mr. Saipov in less than a day on Thursday. The jury will now decide whether the Uzbek immigrant faces life in prison or the death penalty for the bombing, the worst act of terrorism in New York since 9/11.

If the jury decides on the execution, Mr. Saipov would be the first person to be sentenced to death by the federal government during the Biden administration. His Ministry of Justice searched Capital punishment for M. Saipov and othersdespite the president’s stated opposition to the death penalty.

The government argued that Saipov was inspired by Isis to carry out the attack with the rental truck and sought to be a martyr for the group.

During his closing arguments this week, federal prosecutor Jason Richman said the alleged terrorist “turned a bike path into a battlefield”.

As further evidence of the ISIS-influenced nature of the plot, officials pointed to a phone call in the prison where Saipov called himself “caliphate soldier“, and noted the man request to hang an ISIS flag in his hospital room.

The attacker’s lawyers did not deny Saipov’s role in the killings, but instead sought to single them out as lone wolf attacks, rather than a coordinated plot with an international terrorist organization.

“If you plan to die in an attack, you don’t plan to join an organization,” New York public defender David Patton told jurors this week. “I admit there’s something odd about discussing possible explanations for a horrific crime that is inexplicable and senseless, but that’s what he’s charged with, and that’s the ruling you’re being charged with. ask to take.”

The trial also featured first-hand testimony from survivors and victims of the truck attack.

Friedel Decadt from Belgium described seeing the suffering of his sister Ann-Laure, who eventually died from her injuries.

“His gaze was lifeless. She just looked up and there was a lot of blood squirting out of her mouth,” Ms Decadt said. said.

Prosecutors say the man plowed into a rented Home Depot truck on Manhattan’s crowded West Side bike path in 2017, killing eight people and injuring numerous others in an Islamic State-inspired plot. The attack was the deadliest act of terrorism in New York since 9/11.