(New York) The trial of Uzbek Sayfullo Saipov who killed eight people in New York in 2017 on behalf of the Islamic State group opened on Monday, with the man facing the death penalty, a first under Joe’s tenure. Biden who had nevertheless defended its abolition at the federal level.
Manhattan Federal Court Judge Vernon Broderick convened a 17-person jury (12 jurors and five alternates) to remind them that they must now decide “whether a death sentence or life in prison is adequate.”
In the event of capital punishment, “this means that Mr. Saipov will be executed”, warned the magistrate, in a solemn tone.
On January 26, this 35-year-old Uzbek was already convicted of aggravated murder and “supporting a terrorist group” by the jury in Manhattan federal court.
PHOTO ARCHIVES ASSOCIATED PRESS
Sayfullo Saipov in 2017
It is therefore a second trial with the same jurors who must decide, unanimously, the fate of Mr. Saipov, present in the courtroom, seated between his lawyers, dark jacket over white shirt, long black beard and black hair. On the benches, families of the victims or survivors of the attack of October 31, 2017 took place.
On Halloween 2017, Sayfullo Saipov drove a van into passers-by on a bike path along the Hudson River in Manhattan. A deadly ride that left eight dead, including five Argentines and a Belgian, and many injured.
The trial produced painful accounts from victims and the prosecution recalled that Saipov, who had pledged allegiance to IS, never expressed remorse.
At the time, Republican President Donald Trump immediately called for the death penalty, a position adopted by his Justice Department and maintained by the current Democratic administration of Joe Biden. In contradiction, in the eyes of human rights organizations, with candidate Biden’s commitment in 2020 to abolish the death penalty at the federal level.
A moratorium on federal executions, however, was imposed in July 2021 by Attorney General Merrick Garland.
These were very rare anyway, with executions – six in 2023 – most often carried out by states that have not yet abolished the death penalty. Donald Trump had made an exception to this rule by ordering 13 executions, a record, at the end of his mandate.